Realization
by CrystallizedPen
Summary: Yuri finds out about Flynn is going to have a marriage-arranging meeting. Yuri just can't sit still and smells something fishy behind all this. Sometimes, the key to happiness is just right beside you. YurixFlynn
1. Unexpectation

Hi everyone, I'm back with a new story of my favorite pairing: YurixFlynn.

Thanks Syeroix for beta-reading this story. You help me a lot with your suggestions.

Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Vesperia and its characters.

Alright, move on to the story. Hope everyone enjoy it.

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**Chapter 1**: **Unexpectation**

"Huh? A marriage-arranging meeting? With who?" Yuri stopped rolling around on the Commandant's bed with the blonde's pillow in his arms and stared.

Flynn put down the document he was reading on the desk and then reached up to get another from the shelf above, as he answered: "Do you remember the lady in the pink dress with the orange flower in her wavy blond hair? We saw her in the ball last month. I believe Lady Estellise did invite you and the rest of the Brave Vesperia guild there as well."

"Ah, I went home early, so I didn't see her." Yuri recalled as he tossed the bed's blanket over his waist.

"Yesterday, her family's messenger delivered a letter to me." He went to the foot of his bed and began rummaging through the wooden chest and after a few moments he pulled out a yellow card. Flynn then tossed it over to Yuri as the raven-haired man raised his hand to catch it. He slid open the envelope and read through it's contents.

Flynn sat down on the bed next to Yuri as he spoke. "As you can see in the letter, her father seems to have taken a liking to me. So they requested a meeting with me for this weekend. If the meeting goes well, the wedding will be held after a few months." He ended his explanation then peered down upon the document Yuri still held.

After he finished reading the letter, Yuri carelessly threw it over to the small table next to the bed. Somehow reading that letter made Yuri feel uneasy and he didn't know why but a strange feeling seemed to well up in his stomach. He took a quick peek at his childhood friend to attempt to study the blond's expression about this. His expression revealed nothing and it seemed as though he had no real opinion on the situation.

"What about you, Flynn? I bet her father is not the only who took a liking to you. Do you want to marry her?"

"I don't know. From what I know she is kind, well-educated, elegant, and beautiful as well. Lady Estellise said it wouldn't hurt to meet her; she was the one who encouraged me to do so. Plus, I can always decline the marriage after that."

"It's a good thing then. You're too old, so go out there and get yourself a wife already." Yuri said flippantly though it contradicted his feelings on the subject. He felt regretful for saying it and the became quiet, a debate going on in his heart. _'Why am I bothered by this? It's not like I'm Flynn's boyfriend so I have a claim on whether he goes or not..'_ However against his will the thought of being Flynn's boyfriend send a joyful chill down his back.

"No, I'm not old Yuri, twenty three isn't ancient. What about you? You're the same age as me, so you must be pretty old as well by your definition. Why don't you go out there and find yourself a girlfriend?" Flynn shot back, not wanting to lose in what he though was a snappy comment contest.

Yuri sat back up, opening his mouth to say something but he decided to change the subject. His still undeveloped feelings should be kept to himself. "Do you like her, Flynn?" He asked wistfully.

"I said I didn't know. I had met her only once, so I hardly know her. Though she seems quite fine, don't you think?"

Yuri noticed Flynn's cheeks flushed a bit red. The commandant's eyes were no longer on the paperwork but staring out of the window instead, looking dreamy. Yuri knew this would happen no matter how much he wished it not to; his friend's heart was already captured by that blond chick.

"I just remembered something I have to do, I need to go." The raven-haired man stood up and walked toward that window, ready to jump out of the room. He needed to leave this uncomfortable situation.

"Uhmm, it's time for my troop-training anyway." Flynn said a bit distractedly, also standing up. But then he noticed the crusty brown all over his cape and clothes.

"Yuri, didn't I tell you not to get on my bed without removing your shoes?! Look at this! My bed is all muddy and dirty now thanks to you, come back here and clean this mess!"

Though before Flynn could catch him and force him to wash his bed sheets, Yuri leaped from the window and landed safely on the ground. He quickly recovered and turned on his feet, running past the Schwann Brigade that was coming that way. He could hear Tweedle A and B beginning to yell after him. Just before he turned the corner and disappeared from Flynn's line of sight, he turned around briefly and gave the commandant his trademark smirk.

* * *

It was later in the same afternoon that Judith and Karol made an unexpected appearance in front of his rented room at the inn. Both bore gifts, Judith brought him a traditional Krityan hair tie, because the hair tie symbolizes the bond between friends, which would make a great gift for Yuri since Judith and him are good friends. And Karol came with a variety selection of some of Dangrest's famous wine that Harry asked him to give it to the swordsman.

"What's the matter Yuri? You seem a bit down." Karol said, plopping down on the chair that faced the bed Yuri was sitting on. Judith elegantly sat, taking the seat right next to Karol. The Krityan was still as beautiful and attractive as ever Yuri noted, wondering if Flynn had ever liked Judith. He frowned a moment before shaking his head to clear himself of.. those thoughts.

"No, it's nothing really. It's just… Well, something happened and pissed me off, that's all."

"Something pissed you off, like what?"

"Give me a break, Karol. I really don't feel like talking right now." Yuri then fell flat on the bed, his eyes meeting the many cracks scattered across the ceiling. He sighed.

Judith and Karol glanced at each other and exchanged a concerned look. That was the first time in a long while that they had heard Yuri sigh like that. He only sighed when something important was bothering him. Karol took it as a hint that his raven-haired friend was troubled by something important to him.

Suddenly Repede stood from his spot in the corner and pulled out a piece of paper from underneath the bed. He pulled a pencil out of thin air and then drew something using his mouth. After he finished, Repede pushed it over to Judith and Karol with his paw. The leader of Brave Vesperia looked at the dog oddly before picking it up. The picture showed a spiky haired guy in armor with a little heart and an arrow towards a girl with a dress. Under it was a scribbly dark-haired one with a broken heart toward the armored guy. Even though the drawing was really bad and messy, they could still figure out the story and from that what was troubling Yuri.

Karol almost laughed when he thought about how the mighty Yuri was suffering from a broken heart. Luckily, Judith tactfully shoved her elbow at his stomach at the right moment to prevent that from happening. Though both of them were amused by Yuri's predicament.

"Alright Yuri, I think you should tell us what's going on. We may be able to help you, especially me and my expertise in matchmaking." Judith said proudly.

"That's right Yuri. You have to tell us what your problem is, it's not for the good of the guild if we have to spend time worrying about you. Repede already told us the basics of the story anyways."

Yuri jerked right back up into a sitting position and looked at the drawing that Karol was holding in his right hand. He changed his unbelieving gaze to Repede who was sitting near the door, pretending to be innocent.

"Come on Yuri, will you tell us?" Judith asked again.

The raven-haired swordsman sighed in defeat as he told them about how Flynn was going to have a marriage meeting with an aristocratic girl, and how the Commandant's face turned slightly red when the girl was mentioned in front of _him_. Yuri added how he felt uneasy about all those things and he then finished the story with another sigh. He'd been sighing too much since the morning.

"I get it. You're feeling uneasy because you don't want that girl to steal Flynn away from you. You're jealous." Judith put one finger under her chin; she titled her head to the side and received an agreeing nod from the young hunter.

Yuri shook his head, he denied: "No, it's not that. I don't think I love Flynn that much to be jealous of these things. It more like I don't want my childhood best friend to be with someone else than me. Since we grew up and spend most of our time together. I would feel lonely if one day he just suddenly disappeared."

Judith looked confused. This case was different from anything she had heard before. If Yuri didn't want Flynn to be by anyone else's side except Yuri himself, and he felt uneasy when he heard Flynn was going to have a marriage meeting, then Yuri definitely in love with Flynn. But Yuri's behavior showed a different idea to the dragon-rider. His feeling was not strong enough to become love just yet. He needed to think on it some more.

"Then what are you going to do? Do you want to stop Flynn from going?" Karol asked.

"Uh, I want to stop him. However, I don't feel like doing it at the same time. Flynn has the right to choose whoever he wants to marry." Yuri cast his eyes downward, his black bangs darkening his face.

Suddenly the door cracked open as a pink-haired princess stepped in, "So that's the reason you're so down," and trailing behind her was the genius mage Rita Mordio.

"Estelle? What are you doing here?" Yuri looked surprised at the newcomers. He didn't expect to see almost all of Brave Vesperia gathered here and nosing into his personal problem.

The princess sat down on the bed next to him and smiled: "Flynn told me that something was troubling you, so I decided to come here with Rita to check on you. It seems what he told me is true. However, I didn't expect to find out about that problem of yours. I didn't know that you hold special feelings towards him." The princess chuckled, "You should have told us sooner."

"No, you got it wrong. I don't feel like that about him. I do want to stay by his side though and remain the most important person to him."

"That's the exactly same thing as love. The lovers want to be by each other's side and remain their important person forever. Man, you are not different. Stop acting dense already." Rita leaned against the wall, seeming to be in a bad mood. Yuri bet she was working on one of her experiments and then Estelle appeared and dragged her along, and now she had to listen to a problem that she had no idea about. She was definitely angry.

"Yuri, seeing how upset you are over this, I don't think I should tell you. Though I feel I must for your sake." Estelle spoke with a serious tone of voice.

"What is it?" Yuri tilted his head sideways confusedly just to be met by a pair of green orbs.

"Listen Yuri, you need to sort out your feelings towards Flynn. You need to understand your own heart. I only tell you this for your sake Yuri. Just this morning Flynn told me that he does want to get to know Lady Yuria better. I believe he does have a crush on her."

"Hah? What is that chick's name again?" Yuri yelled out all of a sudden, "Lady what?"

"Um…Lady Yuria Glentworth."

"Oh crap." Yuri sunk back down onto the bed and shut his eyes, he hadn't expected this to happen. Not at all.

* * *

That's it for first chapter. Hope you guys like it. Alright, see you next time.

p/s: Reviews are appreciated.


	2. The unforgettable past

Thank you guys so much for the review. I appreciate it. (I think I'm going to cry)

And this is the next chapter, sorry for the delay, school just started for me and my modem is broken *sob*

Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Vesperia and its characters.

Credit goes to: Syeroix (for being my beta-reader)

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**Chapter 2: The unforgettable past**

"What is the matter Yuri? You know Lady Glentworth?" Estelle asked. She was surprised to see how serious Yuri's reaction was upon hearing about this lady.

"She's just an acquaintance of mine. I met her around five years ago when I was still a knight." Yuri explained, "Never mind, I'm just surprised Flynn is going to have a meeting with someone I knew, that's all."

"Alright Yuri, we will all leave and give you some time alone to think about this, since you need to think clearly about the feelings that you have for him. When you're ready come and tell us, and we will help you." Judith stood up first and walked out of the room, followed shortly by Karol and Rita.

"Please do remember Yuri you are not alone, you have us to support you. So go follow your heart." Estelle grasped Yuri's left hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

With that done she proceeded outside of the room along with the others, leaving Yuri and Repede alone. The door closed behind her as Yuri stood up and walked over to the window. He gazed down and saw a group of kids run by, they were probably playing tag. So peaceful.

"I've never thought I would meet her again and in this sort of situation. It must be fate, don't you think so Repede?" Yuri said while taking off his shirt. He then hung it on the windowsill, as he fell flat on his bed and started thinking about the past, with the images of the five years ago vividly running through his mind.

* * *

"_Yuri Lowell!! Where are you?" From inside the wardrobe Yuri could still hear Flynn's voice clearly. He waited for a while longer until __the__ annoying voice went unheard then he stepped out of the wardrobe in one of his fellows' room. He __had __decided to skip today afternoon's training. _

"_Man, those training __classes__ sure are boring. They just tell me to do the exactly same steps over and over again. How can we-soldiers improve by swinging wooden swords around in only one step all day? At least they should assign us to some real battles." Yuri complained to __no__ one __in particular__ while walking along the garden with his hands behind his head. _

_When he was passing by a rosebush, he heard crying. Curiously he turned around and __peeked __behind it. To his surprise, he found a beautiful girl __sitting__ on the ground with her left foot bleed__ing__. The girl looked up at him with her teary eyes __and__ she asked: "Will you help me? I tripped and hurt my foot, now I can't walk. __You are the only one __around here for me to ask for help. Please." _

_Yuri took a quick look at the girl, as he tore his uniform's cape and used it to wrap around the wound to stop the bleeding. He would __have__ probably done it better, if he paid more attention in all th__ose__ medical lessons. Then he offered her his back as he carried her piggy-back all the way to the castle clinic. The castle healer quickly healed the girl's wound__, complimenting__ Yuri for being so much a gentleman._

"_Stop it Danny, you're embarrassing me." Yuri snapped at the man, while the healer just stood there and laughed__, amused__ at how embarrassed the raven-haired __youth__ was. _

_Just when Yuri was about to leave the room, the girl spoke up, "Excuse me, what's your name sir? I appreciate your help today. My name is Yuria Glentworth, __but __you can call me Yuria."_

"_Yuri Lowell." __He replied. __With that, Yuri left the clinic and soon after he was caught by Flynn and __they wouldn't let him have dinner as__ his punishment for skipping training. __Like hell he, of all people,__ would be bothered by that. __Especially b__ecause Flynn snuck into his room later that night and gave him some bread anyway. How sweet of him to care about Yuri that much. _

_A few days after, Yuri was assigned to guard the garden that he met the girl __in__ the other day. He hated standing in one place and __basically doing nothing__. It was even more boring then __the __training section__s since__ all he had to do __was__ stand __in__ one spot and keep his eyes wide open. In Yuri's head, he was singing the 'Boring, boring' over and over. _

"_Excuse me, do you have a moment?" _

_Yuri turned around and saw Lady Yuria __approach__ him. Her foot seemed better __though__. She handed Yuri a package of cookies as a thank-you gift. Yuri was bored, and hungry, so he took it without a second thought. _

"_I __wanted__ to talk with you the other day but it seemed you were in such a hurry so I couldn't. Now I finally __get__ a chance to speak to you." Yuria started the conversation, as she shyly studied Yuri's reaction about the cookies._

"_If you have something to say then say it already." Yuri didn't bother to look at her as he took a handful of cookies and threw __them__ into his mouth at once. _

"_I made these cookies myself. I apologized if the taste is awful, because I asked the head __chef__ to teach me how to make these just yesterday__, so__ I didn't have enough time to practice." _

"_Is that all?" He looked at the cookies and suddenly put it into his pocket. He would like to give __some of __these to Flynn later because __they__ were quite good. Also he knew that Flynn always has a soft __spot__ toward homemade cookies. _

"_Isn't it wonderful that we share the similar name? Yuri and Yuria? Don't you think it is fate?" The young girl said with excitement in her brown eyes. _

_It was about time for him to shift his duty with another one so he said goodbye to the girl and walked off. "Thanks for the cookies." He said before opening the door to the hallway and stepped inside. _

* * *

"Do you know what happened after that day Repede? That girl kept bothering me and following me around. I didn't believe she was an aristocrat by the way she acted and behaved. But after meeting Estelle, I guess there are some exceptions among them after all."

Yuri chuckled slightly at the thought as he continued: "That Yuria girl suddenly disappeared two days after the day she told me she liked me. I heard her family moved to a new city. There were rumors around the Knight as well, since her father is a well-known and has a big influence on the Imperial Council. They said that her father demanded her to marry the captain of my brigade back then, but she refused. I bet you know the reason why she did that." He lowered his voice into a whisper, somewhere in his heart he felt empty.

Repede was listening to the story with his eyes half-lidded. He made a few small noises as he raised his foot to scratch his head. He looked over to the window and barked again as if to say: "The way you're talking shows the fact that the aristocratic girl liked you is something to be proud of." He yawned, and went to back to his half-sleep state.

As if he understood what Repede was saying, Yuri raised his voice in defense for himself: "I'm not that kind of person. But after all these years that girl suddenly shows up and now Flynn is her father's target as a suitable husband for his precious daughter. Though I can't be sure whether she likes Flynn or not. I don't know what you think, but Repede, something smells fishy about this marriage-arranging meeting."

Yuri jerked back up and walked towards the window, as he looked down the street and spotted Flynn was making his daily tour around the lower quarter to check on everyone. The kids gathered around him asked him for candies, as the bright smile on the blonde' face made Yuri felt determined. A determination to protect that smile at all costs.

"If they're planning to hurt you, I will definitely crush that scheme of theirs, and protect you with my own hands."

* * *

"So have you got your answer?" Two days later, the gang were gathered at Estelle's chamber as they had decided to ask Yuri whatever he would do about that marriage arranging-meeting about Flynn.

"I still haven't fully understood it yet, but the fact that I am concerned about Flynn is true. I want to protect him from danger, though as his best friend for now."

"Alright then, I guess it's time for us to hear how much you know about that Yuria girl." Judith took a sip of tea from the cup that the royal maid had prepared for them.

Yuri nodded and told them all about the past. All the secrets involving Lady Yuria Glentworth and everything from the start. "You guys may think I'm crazy, but I definitely feel that something is wrong with this."

"You're right to me you sounded like a total raving lunatic. Just because that rich girl-who used to like you chose Flynn to be her future husband, you're saying that her father is planning something bad. I can't believe you." Rita reached her hand up to fix the goggles as she complained.

Estelle suddenly threw a pillow at the mage as she told her to be quiet. The princess sighed at the reaction of her genius friend, she was knowledgeable about blastia and spirits, but for the things like love and feelings, she didn't have a clue.

The pink-haired princess sat with her legs crossed as she turned around to face Yuri, who was playing with Repede' ears at the time. The dog whined at the pleasurable contact.

"Yuri", she asked, "What will you do Yuri? Do you want to stop Flynn?"

"Like I said, I don't have the right to do so. However, I will try to figure out what is their real intention for approaching Flynn first and then I'll decide what to do next." Yuri explained, "The first thing is I need to get myself into that meeting without Flynn or anyone recognizing me. It's quite complicated though, since the meeting is going to be held in a restaurant. Honestly, couldn't you suggest the castle dining hall rather than that five stars restaurant. But why is the restaurant anyway? There are way too many people there."

Suddenly, Judith whispered something in Estelle's ear as the two of them burst out laughing. Then they looked at Yuri then laughed again.

Karol and Yuri exchanged a dumbfounded look, they had no idea what was going on in those two minds.

"I know a good way to allow you to get into that meeting without others recognizing you. However this method is quite risky and you need to understand it before agreeing to do it." Judith explained to Yuri while her eyes reflected something fishy. The expressions on the two young women's faces made Yuri shivered and couldn't stop asking himself whether he should agree to their plan or not.

* * *

Okay, that's it for the next chapter. Sorry if it is short, I will make it up for you guy in the next chapter. I guess you guys can pretty much figure out what happen next. But, try to stay with me okay?

Reviews are appreacited.

Bye!


	3. Plan?

Yay! I'm back with a new chapter.

I'm so happy that there are so many people put this story on their favorite and alert list, above all is those who took their time and wrote reviews for me. I'm so glad.

Here is the new chap, hope you guys enjoy it.

A/N: Like always, thank Syeroix for beta-reading this.

I don't own TOV and its character. It would be terrible if I did, though.

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**Chapter 3: Plan!?**

Finally that day came. Tonight, Flynn would have a meeting with Lady Glenthworth and her father at the restaurant that Lady Estellise suggested to him the other day. Maybe because of that he woke up earlier than usual, earlier than even the usual early.

Flynn had changed into his amour two hours ago and now he was flipping through the paperwork he had done last night to make sure that everything was in order. Just then, someone knocked on the door requesting the permission to enter. He didn't even have to ask who that person was, because he knew that person all too well.

Sodia- the Commandant's second in command stepped inside and brought a stack of documents with the help of the mage Witcher. She put it down on the desk as she arranged all of the paper onto the shelf in the correct order.

She panted out while reporting, "Witcher and I had finished these paperwork, sir. It took longer than expected. I apologize for the delay."

"I should be the one to apologize, since I made the two of you do the work that I am supposed to take care of myself." Flynn came over to his desk and happily saw over sixty percent of the paperwork was perfectly done. Forty percent more to go and he would have to leave it till after the meeting with Sir Glentworth anyway.

"How is everything going, sir?" Sodia spoke up, "I mean about the meeting tonight."

"So far so good. However, if I said I was not nervous would you believe me, Sodia?"

Flynn smiled at the confused look on the knight's face. In fact he was quite nervous and worrying. It wasn't because he afraid of making a bad impression in front of Sir Glentworth, but a certain raven-haired man worried him. The past few days he hadn't seen the swordsman much. He didn't know why, but Yuri seemed to have given up on sticking his nose into the problems that weren't his. He actually missed the noisy and carefree tone of Yuri's voice and the way his bed was covered with mud whenever Yuri forgot to remove his shoes.

"What's wrong sir? You don't look so good." Witcher fixed his glasses and examined the Commandant's expression. "Your face seems pale, sir. If you are not feeling well, I can try to use my healing magic to examine you."

"No, I'm alright. I'm just thinking about some other things, that's all. You two should go back to your duty." Flynn waved his hand at them while returning his gaze to the pile of paper work.

The two of them respectfully bowed and turned around to leave the room at once. They believed that it was their responsibility to give the Commandant some private time for himself.

After closing the door, Sodia sighed. Her hand still lingered on the door knob as if she was glued there. Now her Commandant had found someone he loved... and here she thought that she would get a chance to stay by his side, not only as his second in command but also that someone special to him that he could rely on throughout the rest of his life. But she guessed she didn't get that opportunity. The Commandant was surrounded by a lot of beautiful and girls of high social standing. Especially Lady Estellise and her Krityan friend Judith. _'I'm not pretty, and I'm from a middle-rank family.'_ She bitterly thought, though staying like this was what she wanted for now. Being his second in command, she would eventually became closer to him day by day. With that thought in mind, Sodia smiled a bit and retreated to her own room ignoring the questioning look she got from Witcher. She had to try her best too, she knew she had just an equal opportunity as that Lady. The Commandant's heart wasn't fully hers yet.

* * *

"Are you sure this method of yours is going to work?" Yuri eyed the bag that contained the materials that the girls had bought over two hours ago at the shopping district suspiciously. They didn't let him see what was inside so he felt a bit curious and… like something fishy was going on.

"Everything will be alright. I'm sure no one will recognize you, even Flynn." Judith said with confidence as she handed over the picture she just finished drawing to Estelle. Estelle immediately nodded her head and both of them started chuckling. Frankly, Yuri regretted agreeing to their plan.

"Alright Yuri, you are free for now so go out and do whatever you want. However, please be sure to come back at five o' clock. We need to get ready for the meeting." Judith told Yuri as she pushed him out of the room, "Use this time to think clearly about your feelings toward Flynn, okay?" The door slammed closed behind him.

'_My feelings toward him, huh?'_ No matter how he looked at that problem, it just seemed not to click in his mind. He just couldn't figure out what kind of feelings he had for Flynn. Friendship? No, it was something much more than that. Love? It wasn't strong enough to be love either. His feelings were somewhere between. While lost in his own little world, he crashed into someone who was walking in the opposite direction. Yuri's curse went silent as he realized that person turned out to be Raven, the fishy old man. Raven now looked older with some white hairs among his black locks. His forehead had become imbued with more wrinkles over time.

"Hey young man, how are you doing? Haven't seen you for a while." Raven patted Yuri on his firm shoulder, "When was the last time I saw you? A year and a half ago, perhaps?"

"Yeah, ever since you were assigned to work at Nordopolica, a city at the other side of the world. It's understandable."

"Wanna have some tea at the cafeteria? I'm free of duty right now, so I think I can spend sometime talking with you." Raven tilted his head, waving his hand to the guard nearby as to say hi. The guard bowed to him and walked away since he seemed to be in a bit of hurry.

Yuri didn't have anything to do at the moment so he decided to come along with Raven to kill some time.

"How is your work at Nordopolica? You look carefree and lazy as always." Yuri said while took a gulp of his favorite drink. He leaned against the chair as he crossed his legs on the table.

"Oi, don't say that to your elder, be respectful." He sighed, "Everything is fine, I managed somehow to keep the city in control, and I think I should say that I'm quite proud of myself. I told you, the coliseum is boring, and the duty keeping the civilians safe is quite boring too since there's not much trouble around." Raven gazed out of the window only to have his eyes meet a group of training soldiers. They were new to the knight's trainings and their reactions were quite slow even for up-start soldiers. Raven remembered about his old days, the soldiers back then were a bit faster in reaction and counters. They were trained in a very strict way so that they would always be ready for a war. Not as lazy and passive like those soldiers these days. He guessed peace had some disadvantages after all. Talking about lazy, Raven referred to himself. He didn't have any much work to do lately except patrolling around the city or finding some dark corner to sleep.

"Isn't it better than running around and fighting, trying to…kill each other for our selfish needs? When a lot more painful things and sadness happen." Yuri put his cup down on the wooden table as he looked around the cafeteria which was filled with other soldiers. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves peacefully.

A group of newly recruited soldiers sat at the nearby table happily shared with each other about their goals for the future. Even though their jobs from now on would be difficult since all the blastias were gone. Which meant, no more barriers, no more powerful magic. They would have a hard time training to be acknowledged as qualified soldiers.

"How is our Commandant doing? I heard he is going to get married." The older man turned his head and asked, "There are a lot of rumors about that flying around you know. I'm not surprised since he is not a kid anymore. Unlike someone I know." He smirked at the person sat at the same table as him, and eyed his eyes at _him_ to watch his reaction.

"Don't mock me." He shot a burning glare to Raven, and sighed, "Man, those rumors sure traveled everywhere huh? Even faster than I expected. But half of what you heard is not true. Flynn is going to meet that lady then decide whether he will marry that girl or not."

"I see. But he is going to have a wife sooner or later right? You kids grow so fast, and I'm growing older everyday." Raven sighed while massaging his shoulder. He wished to have a long holiday so he could go to Jumanju, relaxing himself among the hot spring or even have fun with other ladies. Raven's lips curved into a satisfied smile as he painted out his fancy inside his head.

"Don't worry, the next minute you know you'd probably become an old man that carries a cane around with you every time you walk." Yuri spoke in a sarcastic tone.

"Wait and see then you will suffer the same thing kid. Just wait and see, sooner or later."

"Until then, you will have to watch me and suffer in admiration of my youth." Yuri laughed as the old man shook his head in defeat.

"Alright then young man, let this old man give you some advices. Be truthful to your heart and don't let the chance slip away, or else you won't have time to redo it." Raven stood up and began to walk away, "Remember Yuri, time will never come back." The captain stepped out of the room, leaving Yuri behind with a confused expression.

"Time will never come back huh?" Yuri stared at his half-finished drink and saw the distorted reflection of himself looking back at him with a sad and hesitant expression.

Raven closed the door behind him as he sighed in relief. Giving someone a lecture was not his specialty, the princess would have done a better job than him. He turned aside to be greeted by a mage and a young hunter.

"You did quite a good job there old man. However, you facial expression wasn't sincere enough." The mage commented, "It's lucky that that guy over there is also an idiot so I guess the plan did work after all. "

"Hey, do you know how to show your elder some respect? I just did a big favor for ya. Will it kill ya to at least say thanks?"

"Karol, say it to the old man." Rita demanded as she looked down at the book she was reading a while ago.

The young hunter grumbled, tried to talk back at her. However, he immediately changed his manner as the mage brought up her 'fire' magic spell. "Thank you Raven for helping us", he reluctantly said, and cursed secretly behind the mage's back.

"Guess no one can beat our genius mage huh? But you surprised me there Rita. You just appeared from nowhere and then suddenly asked me to say those things to Yuri. You must be very worried about him. Ah, you are so kind Rita." The captain smirked at the blushing mage.

"Don't…don't get me wrong. I was just trying to help Estelle. Since she was kind of unhappy about that. Besides, the way that idiot keeps denying his love for Flynn makes me sick."

"I wonder if what you said is really true. You're not always good with helping people." Karol said out loud then regretting saying it a second later. Because what followed immediately after that statement of his was one of Rita's golden punches right on his head.

The mage angrily stormed away. "That stupid brat. His body grew up but not his brain. Idiot." She hissed under her teeth, loud enough for the old man to shrug his shoulder in fear.

"Karol, Karol. When you're doubting a woman, never say it out loud. Or else you will have to take a very serious consequence that will make you regret over it for the rest of your life."

"Stop it, why do you have to be so dramatic? Help me up already, it's not time for lecturing." The boy groaned under his teeth while Raven helped him stand on his feet. Then the two of them proceeded the same way as Rita out of the hall, hoping that they wouldn't encounter her on the way.

* * *

There was still time so Yuri decided to take a little walk around the city. He walked through the front gate with his head held highly. This time he was invited by the princess herself so the Schwann Bridge had no reason to chase him around. Not that he didn't enjoy being chased around and then suddenly vanishing out of their sights, leaving them standing there looking dumbfounded.

Unsure where to go, Yuri let his feet do the walking while his mind wandered. After about twenty minutes, Yuri found himself standing in front of an old house apart from the rest of the city. It was pretty much run-down. Yuri made his way through the rusty iron door and the scenery of the house came into to full view. Moss-covered stone steps ate into the right-hand slope. There were trees on the bank of the front garden, some with branches scraping against the high brown brickwork. The windows were flung open with scattered pieces of glass everywhere underneath it and the roof was made of discolored red tiles. The deserted aura that embracing this place made Yuri wonder how long had it been left like this. Ten years, or nineteen years?

Yuri walked on the path made of flat broken stones where long grasses pushed through the cracks almost smothering the hard surfaces in parts. Weeds were overgrown and the flowers didn't appear to be as bright as Yuri thought from a distance away. Their petals were curled and dry. In fact they looked dead to him. He opened the main door and stepped in. _'That place was filled with spider webs and so dusty'_-Yuri thought while reaching his hand up to clear out a big white web just above his head. He was standing in a living room or what used to be a living room though it was empty of furniture. The footprints were left behind on the dusty floor as Yuri observed the other side of the room.

'_The piano should be over here. I bet they sold it already.'_ Yuri placed his hand on the imaginary piano as he tried to recall what did it look like. The vision came up blurry poured into his mind as a single drop of rain. He had actually forgot it. Everything in his memory was misty. Left in the place where there used to be a piano, the raven-haired man looked around the room once more time as he muttered quietly to himself.

"Mom, Dad, I'm home."

* * *

That's it for now. I will update the next one asap.

Reviews are appreciated.


	4. The meeting

Sorry for the delay everyone. I just finished my exam and now this is a gift from me. A new chapter.

This chap has not beta yet. When Syeroix sent it back to me I will replace it.

For now just enjoy this 'creepy' once.

Disclaimer: I don't onw TOV.

* * *

**Chapter 4: The meeting**

The big old father clock that was placed at the corner of the room pointed at six o' clock as Flynn got himself ready for the meeting. He dressed on black pants with a white shirt. Then he slipped his arms into a long black coat that its length reached down to his knees. This clothes was made specially for him by the lady who ran the inn he used to live (which was the same inn Yuri was staying now.) But he hadn't got a chance to wear these clothes since this suite only suitable for the casual occasions. In the ball last month, he had to wear his amour as his duty was making sure that the guests would be safe and no incident would happen. He felt a little bit uncomfortable in this clothes since the only kinds of clothes he usually wore were his knight uniform and his pajamas. To be a role model Commandant means no much choice of clothes. He slipped on a pair of black boots then turned around and looked at his reflection on the mirror. Lightly nodded at the image in front of himself, he walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.

* * *

Meanwhile, at Princess Estelle's chamber, the girls and Yuri were getting ready for their brilliant plan. Estelle and Judith looked at their product after making it over few hours in satisfaction.

"Alright Yuri, it's time to start. I hope you don't get scare and stop it halfway."

"I won't, don't worry Judy." Yuri said, tried to add some more spirit into his voice to rise his confidence up a little. He was a bit nervous, but he couldn't turn back. He would just have to do it.

"Very well said. Alright then, let's get started." The Kritiyan chuckled lightly. This was definitely going to be a fun and enjoyable experience, well at least for her.

* * *

"Are you by any chance sir Flynn Scifo?" The restaurant's manager approached him after he walked out of the carriage. He took a look at the restaurant that Lady Estellise recommended. It was a white-painted building with two floors, around the building was surrounded by a fence of full-bloomed roses with different colors. In front of the main door was a fountain with water poured out through a big hole inside the statue that was placed at the middle of the fountain. This place was quite romantic for a couple to go on a date. May be he should take Yuri here some other time. _'Wait, what I am thinking?'_ Flynn mentally slapped himself for the sudden idea. Why would he think about taking Yuri here on a **date**? This was a date he was talking about, a date with only two people. Besides, if something weird happened to him and made him end up asking Yuri out, his raven-haired best friend would probably stared at him with his eyes wide-opened and then burst out laughing and asked if he had hit his head somewhere before.

"Yes, I am." Flynn turned his attention to the manager and answered.

"Please come this way sir. Your table is right over there, Sir Glentworth told me to wait here for you."

"Sir Glentworth is already here? And there I thought I would be the one who get to greet him. Bad impression at the first minute." Flynn massaged his forehead trying to tell himself that everything would be just fine. This meeting wasn't something like the Imperial Council meetings where he had to sit at the head of a long table and withstood any questions were thrown at him by the Council members. Not to mention some of them did not like him and always fired at him their murderous glares. He took a deep breath and calmed down, _'This meeting is going to be fine,' _he muttered to himself.

Flynn followed the manager as he led him over to the table at the balcony, with lots of candles and red roses. The table that was covered elegantly by white cloth and the surrounded area was preserved only for the meeting, so they didn't need to worry about anyone interrupting them.

He nodded his head in respect at the aristocratic man and to his daughter Lady Yuria. Tonight, she wore an azure dress, and her blonde hair was tied neatly into two ponytails. She looked just as beautiful as the last time Flynn saw her.

Flynn pulled the chair out then sat down facing Sir Glentworth and Lady Yuria. The waiter came forth and offered Flynn a menu, as he ordered a glass of wine. The waiter nodded his head then walked away.

"Commandant Flynn, I appreciate your presence here tonight. I hope after this evening, we can know each other better." Sir Glentworth started the conversation, "You can call me by my first name to be friendlier."

"So in exchange please call me Flynn, sir. Frankly, I do not feel comfortable when someone calls me Commandant when I am not on the knight duty."

The gentleman laughed,"Alright, it is Flynn then." Flynn somehow felt relieve, Sir Glentworth didn't seem scary as the rumors Flynn heard from the knights. He was a middle-age man with brown-hair and kind black eyes. That must mean lady Yuria was inherited her beauty from her mother.

"May I asked how old are you sir Flynn? And how long have you been with the Imperial Knights?" Lady Yuria remained silence from the beginning of the meeting now decided to join the conversation. For Flynn to be her future husband, she should at least start to understand and get to know him more.

"I'm twenty-three, lady Yuria." The name 'Yuria' rang a bell in his mind. It remained him of a certain someone. He wondered how was that person doing at the moment. "I joined the Imperial Knight when I was eighteen, and have been working under the Imperial service for six years."

"I believe you were promoted to be Commandant when you're twenty-one, only four years after joining the Knights, and have been staying in that position for two years. You must be very talented, aren't you sir Flynn?"

"No, not at all Sir Erik. There are a lot more people who are better than me, but they do not like being tied by the rules and all. My best friend is a great example. He has good swordsman skill, and kind-hearted. He would never turn his back to those that need help. When he is determined to protect someone, he will protect them even if it costs him his own life. He's the one always running ahead of me, doing things even I couldn't do. He punished bad people by his own justice. Although I didn't agree to what he did, but I couldn't deny that his own reckless actions saved lots of lives from suffering." Flynn said while having his eyes at the direction where the lower quarter is. Talking about those things brought back memories. He was happy now that everything is over.

"He must be very important to you, judging by the way how happy and sincere you look when you're talking about him." Sir Erik laughed at the blushing Commandant.

"Yes, he is very important to me. I owed him and his friends a lot for helping me protect this country." The waiter came back with a glass of red wine and handed it over to Flynn. "Thank you", Flynn offered a smile to the waiter.

Sir Erik nodded repeatedly out of satisfaction as he laughed out loud. The other side of the room could still heard his laugh clearly. The man held up his glass, took a shift, and said in a husky tone, "I know you treasured this friend of yours a lot. But that's not our main topic for this night, is that?"

"Oh yes, I am so sorry. I just got a little bit carried away." Flynn apologized. Whenever the topic was about Yuri, he could talk until tomorrow or the day after without having a break.

"Alright, please do not be worry", he turned to Flynn and asked him to relax, "I am not going to eat you so do not feel tense, okay?"

Half an hour later, the meeting went quite well for Flynn. He started feeling comfortable around Sir Glentworth and Lady Yuria. The atmosphere was warm and cozy, the laughter filled up the air as Sir Glentworth finished his fifth joke. For Flynn, it had been quite a few years since he laughed without worrying about something like this. He could felt and started remembering how is a normal family like. May be this was something he has been searching for. _A family, that's it._

Suddenly a hand patted on his shoulder as he looked around and saw Princess Estellise.

"Oh my, I do not remember that you are having a meeting here Flynn."

"Princess Estellise, it is a surprise to see you here." Flynn pushed back the chair and stood up. He bowed his head lightly as he greeted the Princess. Today the princess dressed herself in a pink gown with white ruffles along the edge. She had a small tiara on her pink hair and wore a pair of tiny glass slippers on her feet.

"I have a friend who suddenly came to visit me this morning. She is a dear friend of mine, so I invited her to this restaurant for dinner, since this place is my favorite. However, I forgot that you're having a meeting with your future father-in-law and wife, I apologize." Estelle smiled her trademark cheerful smile as she turned to Sir Glentworth, "It's nice seeing you here. I hope I don't disturb your meeting with Commandant Flynn."

"No, of course you don't Lady Estellise. Actually, if you don't mind, I would like to invite you and the lady friend of yours to have dinner together with us." Sir Erik also stood up and offered Estelle a seat next to his, "Please feel free to join us."

"Thank you Sir Glentworth. I think my friend wouldn't mind too. I appreciate your sincere offer. Is that alright with you too Flynn?"

Flynn smiled softly as he nodded his head. He wouldn't mind sharing the table with two more ladies let alone these two ladies were Princess Estellise and her friend.

"Oh, there she is. I will go and greet her." Estelle ran off to the main door's direction.

After a few minutes, Princess Estelle returned, followed behind her was… an incredibly beautiful lady. She was wearing a dress made of purple silk, with a grey ribbon around her waist. Her hair was naturally hung over her back, and she didn't wear any fancy accessories except a silver ring and a necklace. She looked simple yet very beautiful and elegant. Flynn couldn't take his eyes out of her for one minutes.

"Estellise, is it really alright for us to sit here?" The lady in purple raised her head a little, her voice was beautiful too.

"Uhm, we have Sir Erik and Commandant Flynn's approvals so you do not need to worry." Estelle replied and lead her lady friend to the seat next to Flynn. Flynn could feel his heart skipped a beat when he sniffed in the sweet scent of her. It smelled like the roses.

"Excuse me, sir. Why are you keep staring at me? Do I have something on my face?"

"I… I'm so sorry, miss. I did not mean to." Flynn startled and realized he was staring at the lady's face this entire time. He felt his whole face went red, redder than any tomatoes he could see at the market.

When Estelle noticed that blush of Flynn, she tried hard not to burst out laughing. Judging by his reaction, she could confidently said that the plan was a success, no a huge success. She couldn't recognize Yuri in that outfit even though she was the one helping him make up. Yuri was just amazing.

"Let me introduce, this is Flynn Scifo-the mighty Commandant, and the pride of our Imperial." Estelle cleared her throat and extended her hand over to the blond Commandant. "This is Sir Glentworth and his daughter-Lady Yuria. This lady is Leila, a very dear friend of mine." The princess put her hand on her friend's shoulder, as Lady Leila nodded.

"Nice to meet you all. I hope my appearance does not cause you any trouble. Especially you sir Flynn. Since this meeting is very important for your future or so I heard from Estellise." Leila looked straight into his eyes and said.

"No, it's my pleasure to have dinner with one of Lady Estellise's friends. I do not mind it at all."

"Thank you so much." Leila smiled at him as Flynn felt his face turned red once more.

The rest of the meeting, they spent time telling each other about themselves. Everyone seemed very comfortable and enjoyed the dinner. Flynn found out a lot about Lady Leila and Lady Yuria as well. They were both beautiful and attractive. But, it seemed that throughout the meeting, he spent most of his time peeking at Lady Leila rather than talking to Lady Yuria. Somehow, he felt that he had known Lady Leila for a long time. He even found his heart bumped a little bit faster whenever the said girl smiled at him.

"So Sir Flynn, how do your feel about my beloved daughter? I can assure you that she is not only beautiful but very intelligent too. When she was still young, I hired private tutor to teach her about laws, and politics. She also studied a bit about military affairs. She is my pride." Sir Erik took a gulp from his glass of wine, happily gloried about his daughter.

"Please, father. You are embarrassing me, please do not flatter me too much." Lady Yuria spoke up to remind her father.

"Alright, alright sweetie. But I want to know if you want to marry her or not? What is your opinion?" He turned his eyes to Flynn, waited for the respond from the blond.

Flynn hesitated; he didn't know how to answer this question. After all, this was only the first date (however, it didn't typically count as a date because there were Lady Yuria's father and Lady Estellise and her friend), he still hadn't know Lady Yuria. Besides, somewhere at the bottom of his heart kept telling him to refuse. He didn't understand it at all.

Keng! A noise brought him back to reality as he heard Lady Leila's moan of pain. He tilted his head at the said direction and saw her finger was bleeding a little bit. She must have cut herself accidentally.

Princess Estellise leaned forward as she took the bleeding finger into her hands, and then a small, faint green light appeared on her wrist and started running down. It wrapped the injured finger inside its warm embrace and then the cut was gone a second later.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere else?" The princess eyes' focused on her friend, while Flynn picked up the knife that was lying on the floor and gave it to the waiter, who still had his eyes on the healed finger. Flynn bet this was his first time seeing someone using magic without the support of blastia or the spirit.

"Don't worry. I was not being careful." The raven-haired lady replied to her friend as she smiled softly.

'_It's a relief that she was fine.' _Flynn sighed in a very low voice, as if he was whispering to himself. Flynn felt he owed her. Lady Leila must had seen how struggle he was when Sir Erik asked him that question.

* * *

After saying goodbye to Sir Erik and Lady Yuria, Flynn turned around to be met by two beautiful ladies, one was the pink-haired princes-Lady Estellise. The other is her friend-Lady Leila.

"Princess Estellise, please allow me to accompany you back to the castle." Flynn offered, since it was past midnight and he would be worried about the sake of two young lady if they went home alone. Who knew what might happen, and Flynn didn't want to regret for the rest of his life because of one moment. Besides, somewhere deep downs his heart. He wanted to spend time a little bit longer with Lady Leila, just simply paying her for what he owed.

"It is so nice of you. But, I'm afraid that I have to decline this offer. Leila and I both want to spend some time with each other talking about our friendship. Most likely we will come back to the castle within half an hour." Estelle hesitated for a while before politely refused. She couldn't risk having Flynn accompanied both of them on the way home. He might discover the truth about Leila (or Yuri). Then every effort they put into this brilliant plan will become nothing. No, she couldn't risk it. If she made even one little mistake here, not only she would never be able to face Flynn, also the friendship between Yuri and Flynn would be destroyed. No way would she let that happen to both of her friends.

"Are you sure you will be alright? It is not safe for two young ladies to walk home alone when it is late like this."

"Please do not be worry. She and I will go back by the castle carriage. Besides, I know how to use a sword; I can protect her and myself. Not that she would need my help anyway. We just only want to make a little detour." Estelle explained while hooking her delicate arm around the raven-haired lady, and then the two of them stepped inside the carriage pulled by two white horses that was waiting for them.

Estelle and Leila waved their hands at Flynn through the window and saw the blond Commandant did the same thing. Until his figure got smaller and disappeared, Estelle gently sat down next to Leila, or Yuri. She gave him a nod, and told him that the plan was success. Yuri sighed heavily, stretched his arms upwards then took off the heels he was wearing and put on his usual black boots. These heels hurt like crazy; he wondered how Judith be able to wear these heels while fighting in the battles. That must something that only girls could do. Yuri sighed in relief; he hadn't feel this tense when he fought Duke to save this world from his crazy idea. He must admit that he had nuts to wear a girl clothes, walked around in high heels, and spoke in a high-pitched voice in front of people, especially in front of Flynn, fighting monster was way easier.

Flynn arrived at his room after finishing a small tour around the first floor of the castle and checking on the night shift working soldiers. He sat at the edge of his bed while putting off the coat and hung it over to the chair near by. He looked to the left and gazed at the photo that was taken after the Brave Vesperia Guild returned from the Tower of Tarqaron was kept inside a wooden frame on his work desk. He could see himself stood there at the center with Yuri's left hand wrapped around his shoulder. The victorious smiles hung itself on both of their lips.

"Lady Leila reminded me of him. She reminds me of Yuri. Or may be…"

* * *

A/N: So how was it? I really having fun playing around with Flynn. Teehee! But the story is just getting started, wait and see okay?


	5. Childhood

**Chapter 5:** **Childhood**

"This meeting tonight was a total failure. That Commandant just kept staring at that black-haired chick." Sir Erik Glentworth slammed his fist onto the table as he hissed under his teeth.

"That was understandable, since Lady Leila was so beautiful and elegant. She looked so mature, I couldn't compete with her. I think you should drop this plan of yours." Lady Yuria sat on the couch at the opposite of the room; she was so tired from seeing her father got all irritated like this.

"No way, there's no way I will give up this plan. Can't you see the potential in that Commandant? The way he talked, the way he acted, the way he controlled everything made him a worthy candidate for my brilliant plan." Sir Erik leaned on his elbow as he burst out laughing, unable to hold his back desire. He laughed as a crazy person would laugh, he laughed as if there were no tomorrow. A picture of him when he gained the final victory displayed through his narrow mind. The feelings caused him to dance around with joy and happiness. But he didn't want to do that in front of his daughter, who he had to pretend to be strict and scary on.

"I agree to help you with this plan. But that doesn't mean I will do absolutely whatever you told me to. Since I am the key of this plan, without me you can't do anything." Yuria dreamily lied down on the couch. She put her hands behind her head as a pillow while whining, "Acted to be an elegant lady while I am not a one is just awful and boring."

Sir Glentworth stopped laughing and fixed his gaze at his precious daughter. She was right, he couldn't do this plan without her help. The man smirked at her and looked at her in the eyes, as he told her not to be worry.

* * *

"How was it Estelle? I mean the plan of course." Judith was waiting for the two to return from the meeting together with Rita and Karol in the pink-haired princess's room.

"A huge success." She held her two fingers into a V-shape as a victorious smile appeared on her pink lips. "Even Flynn didn't recognize him yet Lady Yuria. It was very funny watching Flynn's reaction towards our Lady Leila. He just couldn't take his eyes of her." She laughed hilariously while pointing at Yuri.

"Urgh, stop making fun of me. It is not like I'm wearing woman clothes because I want to. All was for Flynn's sake, get it?" Yuri said while tossing the ribbon aside after having Karol helped him to remove it. This thing was complicated to him, swinging his sword around would be even easier.

"I knew it, I knew you can do anything Yuri, even cross-dressing and acting as a real lady. You're just incredible. As expected from someone I admire." Karol said with his eyes sparkled. He always admired and saw Yuri as his older brother, as someone he held a lot of respect.

"Oh, thanks. But I don't need your admiration because I cross-dressed and acted to be a woman while I am a man." Yuri took his usual clothes as he opened the door to the changing room, "Man, this dress sure is uncomfortable, how can you girls wear this anyway?" He complained and shut the door behind him.

"It was so much fun; I wish you were there to look at the two of them." Estelle couldn't hold back her laughter. She sat on her bed while Karol stared at her questioning.

Rita went over to the bookshelf as she scanned it and took out a book with red cover on the second shelf; she asked while looking over the book, "Anyway, how is that Lady Yuria? If you were sat at the same table as them, then I bet you already had a good look at her."

The princess nodded her head, she thought for about five seconds then she said, "Lady Yuria was indeed beautiful since all of you knew it when we saw her in the ball last month. However, I thought I felt something weird.

"Something weird?" Judith sat silent for awhile now said.

"I felt there was something wrong with Lady Yuria. It was indescribable, she seemed a little bit depressed, and she didn't show any interested in the conversation as well. Actually, the people that talking the most were our Lady Leila, Sir Glentworth and Flynn. Lady Yuria was only joined in the conversation when she was asked by the others."

"Uhm, if that lady didn't have any affection for Flynn then the one that we need to concern about is her father. He's definitely having something really fishy under his sleeve."

"You're right Karol. That's exactly what I am thinking too." The princess clapped her hands, giving the young hunter a compliment, Karol reached up and scratched his head in embarrassment. A light shade of red lightened up his cheeks.

"Hah, even a seven years old kid can realize it." Rita peeked over her book and smirked. The hunter sulked at the mage's statement; he wondered when would the mage stop treating him as an idiot.

The genius mage pulled a chair toward her as she stood on it to reach to the highest level of the bookshelf; she tried hard to keep balance. It seemed that she had finished the red cover one. "Oh, by the way," she said, "I don't really like that Sir Glent…whatever his name is. I once co-operated with him in a project from some years ago. And I have to say that he is quite a hunger."

"What do you mean by 'hunger'? He eats a lot?" Karol eyed her in confusion.

"Idiot. That's not what I am trying to say. Hunger means hunger. That man is a money hunger, power hunger, and he wants to be in charge of everything. He is creepy, that was the reason why I dropped out from the project later. I'm saying it now so that you guys can be careful around that man." Rita finished her sentence then immediately focused on the new book she had just found. Talking about that creep always gave her a chill.

The whole room sank in silence. When Yuri done changing back into his normal clothes, he stepped out of the room and abruptly noticed the deadly silence that ruled the entire area. He looked at Estelle, then to Judith and Karol, and then finally stared at the mage. "What is it? You all afraid of that old man? He is a hunger, so what? As long as we find out his plan and prevent that from happen, everything will be fine, right?" He said, tossing the dress over to the bed. That was exactly what he felt. Why would they be afraid of an old man like that Erik. He sure did have his status and wealth. But that didn't make him invincible. May be a little cunning may helps but to Yuri, he was nothing more than common people, who was born and raised on this Terca Lumireis. If there was a difference it would be he was born in royal quarter and that was all. That one man wouldn't make Yuri flinched, even in his fantasy.

The others looked at Yuri as if he just said something stupid, then the four of them sighed in unison, "Simple-minded."

Yuri jerked his eyebrow in a sulky way. He didn't like it when everyone decided to gang up on him. "Hey, I'm just straight-forward." That was true. Authority, wealth, and status stood nothing in front of Yuri. He would eventually find out a way to walk around it if not facing it, even by taking a wrong path or carving his own name into the stone tablet of sin. He decided to walk the path he had chosen for himself, and he had already walked half of the road, no turning back for him now. He minded nothing, as long as he achieved his goals and protected those who were precious to him. Especially the blond.

* * *

The moment the raven-haired swordsman left the castle was the time when the clock chimed its first strikes of a new day. The streets from the castle to the lower quarter were emptied of people. Yuri looked around and obviously found out he was the only person around here.

'_The atmosphere at night sure is cold and fresh'_, Yuri thought to himself when he reached the public quarter, and then decided to sit down on one of the stone benches. The night was quiet and peaceful. He enjoyed the sensation given off by the night whispered wind, gently caressed his cheek in a soft motion.

"Haven't gone home yet?" A voice from behind startling Yuri. He immediately returned from his dreamy world as he turned around and spotted Flynn without his armor was walking towards him.

"Uhm, the air feels nice so I think I will stay here for awhile." Yuri answered and he patted at the empty space next to him, "If you are not in a hurry, which I strongly believe that you aren't; why don't sit here and enjoy the night with me."

Flynn smiled softly then sat down beside Yuri; he raised his head looking up at the black night sky filled with endless stars. The Brave Vesperia star shone at the Northern part, it was the brightest star on the sky. The single star shone through the darkness, the single star led the way to those who had lost. Yuri was a part of that star.

The two of them sat in silent for a while. The cool air and a weird feeling lazily filled the empty space between them. Yuri titled his head slightly and peeked at his best friend. To his surprise, Flynn looked somewhat different. His blond hair was glittering under the reflection of the yellow orb of nature hung up there on the sky, flung softly along the perfectly high cheekbone due to the gentle wind. Somehow, his hair seemed a bit shorter. _'Has Flynn cut his hair?'_ Yuri wondered, and then decided to keep the thought to himself and then amused by observing the blond' thin lips opened and closed in a harmonious rhythm. It made him wondered was Flynn trying to say something or was he singing? However, the most important thing was that watching him like this made Yuri's heart beat a slightly bit faster. He shrugged his shoulder clearing his mind from those thoughts, and leaned backward through the support of his arms and rose his head to take a better look at the imperfect ball shining on the sky. How peaceful was this moment. If time could freeze, he wanted to stay like this forever.

"Sitting like this makes me recall about the past, when we are still two young good for nothing kids."

"But why it suddenly?" Yuri asked while still gazing at the moon. Of all things, why did Flynn want to bring that matter up? It was the past of a decade ago. Frankly, Yuri didn't like talking about their childhood, despite how much he tried to bury it deep down, the fact that he was an orphan would ever change.

"No special reason, I just remember the time when we spent with each other, as kids. There was so much fun." Flynn chuckled lightly as an image of ten years old Yuri dashed across his mind.

* * *

"_Yuri! Come back here."_

"_If you want to catch me then you have to run faster. Try harder big boy." _

_Yuri gave his chaser a smirk before he abruptly turned around the corner and disappeared out of the chaser's line of sight. He ran for about a few more minutes then he decided to take a rest. He leaned on a brick wall and clung his chest with his left arm, while trying to grab as much air as he could. He felt his chest slowly filled with the endless resource._

_He looked down his other hand and smiled devilishly at the trophy he got from a fighting with a group of children in town. It was a piece of marble with blue and hazel green veins along the edge. 'It's pretty.' He made a thought to himself and carefully placed it inside the pocket of the shabby pants he was wearing. The pant was old and too long for his little but strong legs. Yuri was quite proud of the legs he owned. They were the fastest among the kids, and they were famous for helping him run away; balancing himself while he stood on one of the highest branches of the tree and smirked down at others who were trying to catch him. But unluckily, their remarkable efforts were a failure. _

_After making sure his chaser was nowhere to be seen, he slowly walked out from the dark valley created __by two tall buildings and hopped the rest of the way to his secret hideout. _

_He tried to avoid crashing into anyone on the way, and it seemed that no one wanted to make contact with him anyway. He was somewhat famous in an infamous way. The people probably pretty much tired of him already. _

_His secret hideout was actually the lower quarter's sewer. It was always dusty and humid with a stale smell of used water and sometimes rotten fish. There were even rats and cockroaches everywhere. Those animals didn't bother him at all, sometimes he even found them cute. But his home mate didn't think so. _

_Yuri pushed open the rotten wooden plank that he used as a temporary door separated the hideout and the world outside. He considered it a barrier blastia, and quite proud of it. "Flynn, come here and look at what I got."_

_Flynn was his home mate. He was an orphan just like him, and they were the same age. However, the difference between Yuri and Flynn was Flynn's eyes were a pair of aquamarine orbs, and the hair was the same color as the morning sun. While Yuri owned a black hair and coal colored eyes. They just liked an opposite image of each other. They were best friend. They relied on each other to survive, without the other, they wouldn't be able to live this long. They once referred to themselves as sun and moon. _

"_You got into another fight huh? When will you stop this nonsense?" Flynn frowned at his friend, and then started yelling after he spotted a purple bruise lied shamelessly on Yuri's left eye._

"_Come on, I didn't get into any fighting."- justified Yuri, hoping Flynn would fall for that._

_Flynn rose his eyebrow in an indignant disbelief. Yuri knew it, there was no way he was going to buy that for an excuse. 'Argh, he is so annoying sometimes.'_

_Finally, Yuri admitted in defeat that he indeed got into a fight, quite a big fight. However, he didn't do much kicking or punching. Rather than got hit by the others, he decided to sit back and left it to the older kids. Yuri just ran around, and flexibly dodged any coming fists or kicks that flung at him purposely or accidentally. He continued running around until he spotted an enemy that he could smell 'trophy' aura around that kid. Then like a fast and furious wind, he jumped forward and knocked the said target over. The kid stumbled and fell his back flat on the hard surface. A loud moan escaped his swollen lips immediately went unheard as the fighting noise overlaid everything. A glass marble fell out of his pocket as the sparkling object caught Yuri's cunning eyes. Before the owner could do anything to retrieve it, he dashed aside and quick as a slash he picked it up then spin around on his feet retreating from the battle. There was no need to stay behind now that he got his trophy._

_Yuri finished the story as he carefully studied his blond friend's expression. Flynn was somewhat pissed off. His eyebrow jerked up and turned upside down the second later. The annoying expression on his face changed to disappointment, "Taking what doesn't belong to you is not the right thing to do Yuri. I wish we don't have to steal things much more than we already did. The town folks will soon grow hatred against us." _

"_Don't worry; they won't hate us because they already hated us. And I just wish you could steal food just as good as you could scold, then our life would be easier." Yuri irritatingly shot back. He stood up unsteadily due the stinging pain on his eye, brushing off the filthy dust on his shoulder blade while kicking aside an empty carte and lied down on the empty space he had just created for himself. Whenever Yuri curled himself up into the corner in the middle of a conversation like this, it could only mean one thing that he had nothing more to say or he just stubbornly didn't want to talk about it. Unfortunate for him, Flynn was stubborn too. _

_Flynn silently sat down aside him, hunching his shoulder a bit to prevent i from hitting the wooden shelf above. "Give it back to whoever you took it from Yuri. Let's just only take what we really need." Flynn softened his voice to some sorts of whisper. _

_Then Yuri felt a cold, frigid hand rested on his arm. He turned around, facing the cracked wall to avoid the touch. Why was Flynn so kind-hearted, so good and honest? Did he have any definition of the word 'doubt' or something similar to it in his dictionary? _

"_The guy's name is Buford." _

_There was an intense silence, only the rhythm of the overflowing dirty water could be heard inside the dark sewer. Even if it was dark and stinky, there were two kids who chose it and treasured it as their home. _

_After a long while, Yuri heard a gently chuckle from his home mate as Flynn finally understood what he meant. Yuri turned around slightly as he pictured out the small smile flew across the blond's lips. Such an innocent smile, why would he still be able to keep that smile of his after so many things he had gone through? Yuri knew he would never be able to smile like that even if he tried. _

"_I know you're a good person, Yuri. You just don't know how to express yourself clearly."_

'_Am I?' That question was left unanswered, even today. However, Flynn didn't know the reason Yuri took the marble in the first place was because of him. _

* * *

The flash back ended with yet another smile blossomed on the Commandant's lips. He was not mistaken choosing Yuri as his best friend. When the two first met, he knew that he could be friend and would have his back supported by Yuri. He was delightful whenever he remembered about that fateful encounter. It was on a night with the very same imperfection of the moon like this. Where Yuri decided to let him joined in and became a member of Yuri's secret hideout, he had always been grateful ever since.

While drowning in his little pool of memories, Flynn completely forgot about the surroundings. Not until his shoulder was shaken fiercely by the raven-haired that he realized how long had he been spacing out. He was too deep in his thought.

"Hey, are you okay? Still on earth with me?" Yuri asked while still shaking the Commandant's shoulder gently yet strong enough to pull Flynn completely back into reality.

"Huh, oh, sorry."-replied Flynn still having the smile on his face.

"Good, I thought there is something wrong with you since you just suddenly smiled to yourself without saying any word. And your eyes were all that dreamy and…" Yuri stopped, tried to picture out the exact word to describe his eyes at the moment, "and weird." He hesitantly added.

"Weird? How that is supposed to be weird? I cannot bring myself to understand your poor choice of vocabulary, Yuri. You seriously need to consider the idea to study Literature with Princess Estellise whenever you get a chance. I believe she won't mind about giving you some good lessons," said Flynn mockingly. He knew how easy a Literature lecture would get Yuri into trouble. As soon as he knew him, he also understood that Yuri's strength was not lying within vocabularies, poetry or those things that similar to it. But he was the one that always won the argument, whether was he the one started it or not. That made Flynn wondered where Yuri would be able to pull out a more than perfect reason to shot back at him. He was a natural?

Yuri faked a hurt expression on his face, moaning a depressed song while having his hand around the blond's shoulder and the other on his heart. "Come on, do you know that you just hit me on the most sensitive side of me? Honestly, do you have to be so aggressive over something as trivial as this?"

"See? What a terrible choice of vocabulary. Most people call it 'concerned' not 'aggressive'. You just had innocently proven my point." Flynn burst out laughing, clung onto his stomach in the process to hold it down, however it wasn't really effective. Only with Yuri that he would be able to laugh the whole out of himself, the one thing in many things that he couldn't do or didn't allow to do in front of his knights. "By the way, quit that mocking expression… you inherited… from Captain Swa…Raven. It… doesn't suit you… at all," Flynn struggled between laughs, hardly to say anything clearly. However, Yuri managed to understand it just fine.

"Hah, so what kind of expression would suit me? Do the mighty Commandant care to lighten up this stupid brain for me?"

"Just act like you always do. I like an original and truthful Yuri, the one that is not the same as anyone else. My rival and forever best friend." Flynn folded his hand into a fist and firmly pointed it towards Yuri. While the raven-haired surprised looked back at him and did the same thing.

"Yeah."

Saying that, Yuri indirectly admitted the fact that he had betrayed Flynn's trust placed in him. He was lucky once, but not twice or three times. Flynn would find out about it eventually. Would they still be friend after that? However, the future is something that yet arrived; he wouldn't need to worry about it now. Only the present that he would.

* * *

A/N: Here you go. The chapter is finished. Nothing really special about this one, I just want to have a little sneak peek into these two's past so yeah. I really love writing them as kids. I wish there is an movie that about their childhood. It must be fun.


	6. Reveal

**Chapter 6:** **Reveal**

The two of them sat in silent for almost an hour more before they finally parted way. Flynn turned on his feet and left for the castle. While Yuri continued trailing down the seemed to endless stairs that led back to the lower quarter. Tonight, he would have a nice and sound sleep. The reason for that was unknown, as if it would bother him at all.

* * *

The unmoving cloud was blown away by the gentle wind formed by the wind spirits from the west, as the morning rays of sun slowly washed golden warmth over the lower quarter. A few tiny lines of sunlight sheepishly found it way through the cracks of the window of Yuri's rented room. First it wandered playfully on the sill and then to the brown wooden floor, and energetically landed on its final destination-Yuri's face.

Suddenly the feeling of something bright attacked the closed-eyes, Yuri shifted sideways to avoid the disturbing brightness as he snuggled closer to the wall. Only to have his forehead collided with some sort of furry and soft object. Then he felt his nose inhaled some strange thing, the whole area inside his nose went itchy and the second later, he realized that was Repede's fur after having a seemed to be an everlasting sneeze. _'Thank God and Spirits that it was finally over' _thought Yuri to himself. It definitely not a good start for a new day.

Yuri slowly sat up and tossed the blanket over to the floor before shrugging off his sleepiness through some morning exercises. To be frankly, Yuri was not a morning person, yet alone getting some exercise done. However, after the adding of new member to his home, Yuri soon got used to it. At least doing exercise was way better than hearing his friend yelled at him about the benefit of morning exercise. For not being a morning person, Yuri just couldn't handle the scolding and lecturing at the beginning of a new day. Therefore, he gave in and went with the other option, which left him only good.

He scanned around the room, and found his shirt was lying mercilessly on the floor, all dusty, and wrinkle. He must be too tired last night that his mind did not even register the habit of hanging his shirt over the chair likes usual. Instead, it went straight onto the floor.

Picking up the shirt, Yuri kicked opens the door and a vivid light once again invaded his eyes. Bringing up his palm to shield the light away half-consciously, he heard a slightly chuckle came from the same direction of the light. "Estelle?" he asked doubtfully.

"Good morning Yuri. It is good to see you are already up and be ready for a new day." The pink-haired princess gave off her cheerful smile as Yuri took a better look at her appearance. Today the princess dressed herself in a lotus color dress that matched her hair. On her hand, she was holding a strange looking device that Yuri somehow managed to make out that was the cause of the vivid light he saw earlier.

Noticed the questioning look on Yuri's face, Estelle immediately explained, "This is a new device that can be use to create light that Rita invented using the power of mana. The way it works is similar to a blastia core. Or so Rita said." She held up the device to allow Yuri a better access at observing it. "Isn't it wonderful?" she added.

"Yeah, this one definitely can be put into good use. I see Rita finally knows how to take a break from her pointless inventions. I don't deny the matter that she is a genius mage and a talented researcher, but she is not gifted with the ability of inventing. Remember the time when she almost blew up her own laboratory?" That earned him a chuckle from the Princess. She remembered that one time too. It was the day of two months ago, when Yuri, Karol and Estelle were invited to come to Rita's laboratory, which usually kept out from all the time. When the three of them approached the little shack inside the newly built Aspio at northern of Halure, they noticed a column of smoke was coiling slowly up the air in seven different, weird colors even, immediately followed by a heart attack explosion from within. The remnant of the place could only now be described as a mess created by the Spirits of Destruction; Efreet and Gnome. Luckily, the mage was intelligent enough to put up a protective barrier surrounded her, as much to Estelle's relief. However, that incident earned her the privilege of appearing on the front page of the Terca Lumireis News, with the title: "An unsuccessful suicide."

Closing the door behind him, Yuri put on his shirt and before he got a chance to fasten it with the brown belt, the princess suddenly yelled at him with her high-pitched voice.

Estelle forcefully yanked the shirt out of Yuri, holding it in front of her, "Oh my, what is this terrible smell? Do not tell me that you are wearing the same old shirt from yesterday? And look at all these wrinkles! Honestly Yuri, can you be any lazier than dressing up by a new shirt?" She immediately brought up her hand to block the invasion the said smell from entering into her nose, feeling a little bit regret due to her poor choice of acting before thinking. Estelle walked past the swordsman who was now only staring at her to turn the knob and flung open the wooden door, which almost hit Repede. The dog snorted, growling at her before settling himself a bit farther away from the girl. The Princess quickly gave off an apology and sadly muttered to herself how Repede would hate her even more now. She really wanted to get along with Repede just like Rita and Judith, but why he always kept a distance from her, she did not understand it. Yuri once explained that Repede didn't like the sense of aristocracy that she had. However, it was not definitely the case.

She turned over to the right corner of the room where she expected to see a…

"Yuri! Where is the wardrobe that Judith and I brought to you two days ago? Where has it gone?" The princess shot the man standing at the doorstep a burning glare, which Yuri define to be a deadly threat if her eyes could actually burn. Yuri mechanically pointed his thump finger at the door and it took Estelle several minutes to understand what he meant.

After taking a closer look at it, Estelle gave off a defeated sigh as she found out the material of the door was now the very same thing that the newly brought wardrobe made of. She tried to calm herself down before she would get herself to start yelling at him. That wardrobe was the gift from a member of the Imperial Council. It was made from a more than one hundred years old tree from the Southern Hypionia. However, almost the area of her room was already packed full with bookshelves; instead, she decided to give it to Yuri, despite how much the Krityan advised her not to. Now to feel only a bit regret. She was not disappointed though; she knew that Yuri was just being Yuri. He would go with essential things rather than having a seemed to be useless thing stood around without taking a full advantage of it, just as this poor wardrobe was being a part of the door. However, she did not need to worry about the enduringness of that door; it would likely last for about ten years or so.

Flinging a few strands of hair behind her shoulder, Estelle felt slightly amused at how long it was now. A past few years, it grew a little bit longer, now reached the base of her neck. She intended to cut it, but she decided to leave it be because Judith once told her that she would look better with her hair long. Estelle took out a small letter from her pocket, and handed it over to Yuri, who received and brought the said object up to examine it a little bit closer.

"This is a letter requesting assistance from the Brave Vesperia Guild for the Imperial Knights on their job to eliminate a newly formed swarm of monsters that threatening the residents of Aurnion." Estelle explained to the confused look on her friend's face. "This letter has an official seal from the Imperial Council and was both signed by the Emperor candidate Ioder and Commandant Flynn Scifo," she added.

'_Now the Imperial wanted help from the guild huh?" _Being too busy fussing over the matter of the mighty Commandant got a date with his marriage candidate, made Yuri totally forgot about the rising tension between the Guild Union and the Imperial Council recently. Not to mention that there had been some minor fighting broke out between the two forces. If small fire did not get extinguish soon, when it got enough fuel and turned into a furious fire hurricane, it would be too late to even feel regret over it.

"So you want me to deliver this letter to the boss of Brave Vesperia?" Yuri waved the white envelope wearily, "Why not let the other do it? Flynn, for example." Why he always the one who had to do these minor, little sweet things? Did it relate to the fact that having a Commandant friend makes him the ambassador for the two forces? No, not in the least that he has that privilege of earning the title. An errand boy would seem to suit him, in this situation.

"Flynn is too busy with his work, therefore he asked me to give this to you. Then he will go and inform the matter to the Guild himself sometime later." Spinning on her lily tiny feet, the princess elegantly made her way out of the room. Before disappearing completely, she did not forget to bid Yuri goodbye and good luck. He didn't understand the latter one. Good luck but for which occasion? It was not for delivering the letter, was it.

* * *

After checking all the preparation for the trip was completed, Yuri jumped over the edge of the Fiertia, positioned himself on the deck, and be ready for a long journey to reach his destination-Dangrest-the Guild city-also the head quarter of Brave Vesperia. Repede was already settled beside him when he noticed. The dog was always quick-acted.

Briefly glancing at the direction of Zaphias the capital, the sea breeze carried a little salty feeling to it. Yuri had expected to have the Commandant seeing him off, but his paperwork was properly keeping him from going. Anyway, as if it would bother him whether Flynn decide to show up or not.

The ship's captain Tokunaga approached him, informing Yuri that the ship was ready to set out at his order. After receiving a nod as an approval, the said man immediately shouted out a command to his other sailors, in a tone that reminded Yuri of the sound of wind and ocean. Strong, loud like a hungry wind, yet gentle like an ocean at time. It made him wondered how long Tokunaga had been on doing a job that let him flop up and down with the untiring change of ocean. It must feel great to have something one desire to do and stick with it until the end. To Yuri, that would be the idea of carrying out justice that kept him going on.

The large, white sails bellied out as a pair of wings eagerly took off as the wind quickened its pace. The ship soon left the dock and the busy harbor town behind, sailing out into the blue horizon. Gazing down at the glittering reflection of the view, painted onto the sea's surface, the beam of sunlight sparked the whole town up into a heavenly painting; Yuri realized how beautiful the world had changed ever since Adephagos and Aer were no longer the threat to Terca Lumireis and her people.

* * *

Flynn looked out at his room's window, towards the Capua Nor harbor. He threw his eyes as far as he could, in hope catching the sight of the image of some ships, though it was quite hard to see. He lightly noticed the change in smell carried along by the western wind. He needed too to make his move.

"Sodia, please go and inform the knights to prepare. We will be leaving at the early dawn the day after tomorrow."

His room today was filled with rose fragrance. It set his mind at ease.

* * *

The timid rain of this area was always helpful in increasing the population of the monsters. Yuri cursed under his teeth as he spun on his feet just in time to dodge a Rhinossus that was charging at him. Fighting these things without a bodhi blastia was annoying as hell. Despite how skilled a fighter Yuri was, he still found it difficult to just landing a critical hit yet alone perform a fatal strike. After a half of an hour dancing with the wolves and rhinossuses, Yuri fell flat on his back down a blanket of green, sharp grass which he realized a little bit too slow to even thought about not doing it at the first place. Nevertheless, the itchy pain at his back was nothing compare to the wound from Zaude, much worse than this. If he got a second chance, he would never ever stand somewhere near the edge of the cliff, so that if he pissed Sodia off yet again, he wouldn't fall into the cold water beneath. An open cut and salty water were definitely not a good combination. Yuri snorted painfully at the recollection; the scar from that memorable incident was still there right on the left of his rib. The wind suddenly changed, from west to east with a strong current. It brought along an earthy, unpleasant smell. This kind of wind never brings good news.

Standing up on his feet, Yuri motioned for Repede to do the same. He decided the best bet in this situation was to arrive at Dangrest as fast as possible. Although Yuri was not a woman, but his intuition was sometimes more accurate than ones.

With the paces speeded up each passing seconds, they soon reached the Den of Guilds in no time. However, the weird feeling still kept bugging him not until he flung open the double door lead to the Brave Vesperia Guild HQ. That was a new building at the left hand side of the Union Head Quarter. It was so convenient to the Guild benefits by having an official base just only a few meters away from the Union. Yuri couldn't bring himself to believe that the young Captain Karol Capel actually had his full name listed on the second place of the late Don Whitehorse's will. The honor brought him not only fame but also a deteriorated building just next to the Union for using as the base of the heroic guild Brave Vesperia. After a whole three months under construction with remarkable efforts of everyone, the building was now just as good as it once used to be or even better. He had no idea how did it look like in the past, hence he had no say in this. However, whenever he looked at the appearance of the building, the phrase 'well designed' did not cross his mind. The building outlook was a mixture between the modern and the style of the Acient Civilization in the past; with two pointy vertexes for the Western and Eastern part of the whole structure, and a oval for the middle one. It just looked absolutely ridiculous. The man who came up with this design was a certain weirdo of the Architecture Guild. Moreover, how he pursued the young boy to actually agree with his idea was even weirder and unbelievable, that Yuri could not understand. It was a building of two stories with a relatively big meeting room enough to hold up to fifty people at once. Although that was nothing compare to the Union Quarter, this building itself was the very first step to strengthen their position and authority inside this filled of different Guilds city. This was the first platform for the Brave Vesperia Guild to launch into businesses, and make it existence awareness to the people of the world.

Upon his arrival, the raven-haired swordsman was greeted by a number of his fellows. Most of them were new to the Guild business and it took Karol and him a whole lot month to get them become familiar to the way the guild works and all.

"Welcome back, boss." A girl who was standing at the corner talking to a few others approached him and gave him a proper greeting with her sheepish smile. She was a few years younger than him, or so he guessed.

"Stop calling me that Eerie, I am no boss and you know it." Yuri replied wearily as his eyes scanned the whole hallway in a quickly motion to register any changes in the members' routine. Nothing seemed to be out of ordinary. That was good.

The girl slightly laughed at him before showing him a report about the request that the Guild had it taken care of two days ago. A simple and longer than necessary document consisted of three pages. Now this was boring.

"When the boss is not around, you're the person in charge of the Guild. That's why it is not hurt to call you boss when the real boss is not here." Eerie tossed him a sarcastic smirk before sliding the report into his hand then she walked away casually without even letting him a chance to groan.

Being one of the first members who had a chance to witness the establishment of the Brave Vesperia Guild, Yuri earned the second highest position in the whole organization. However, his job as the second highest boss mainly was delivering things (most of the time were letters) between Guilds and the Empire. When the real boss suddenly disappeared from his office with a cute little letter of excuse behind on his work desk, Yuri had the privilege of carrying out the man's job, though it was given to him forcefully, unfairly and unwillingly.

He skimmed through the report lazily and started walking towards his own office. The dim lit hallway built of bricks led his steps with its dull embrace. Each step of his connected to the marble floor underneath his shoes creating a faint echo resounded in a rhythmically order.

His _private_ office was also formally known as the guild library. When the door was swung opened, immediately a book like smell rushed inside his nose as he entered the room. Long lines of bookshelves joined each other and filled up the enormous space. Some of them were high enough to reach the ceiling above that the only way to reach it was using ladder. On the left hand side of the room was a big glass window looking out a small field was used by the Guild to train its members. Only books and books wherever he looked at. He passed by some other members who were busied themselves in whatever the book they were reading without having a care for the world around them. They were the type of people that was born with the ability of ignoring noises and learning how to stay focus in everything kind of surroundings. Even if the building was set on fire, some of them would probably too busied to notice that they were going to be burned alive. Yuri snorted at the atmosphere as he making his way to center of the library. If his office was not in this timid and dark cave, he would never even bother to set feet here. Yuri sank down into his chair, crossing both his legs on the desk, which by the way accidentally knocked over a whole stack of paperwork off the desk. It did not bother him at the least to pick it up. He knew another member would gladly carry out that task for him, as usual. However today, a weird feeling kept bugging him, it felt uncomfortable for him to sit idly as he always did. So instead, Yuri stood back up onto his feet then leaned down and began picking up the messily scattered papers on the floor, until something caught his eyes.

The thing was a book that hidden itself secretly under the little underneath space of the record shelf at the left hand side of the room. Yuri had to use a small stick to take it out. After getting hold of the book, Yuri dropped back onto his chair and started studying the said object. The book appeared to him as an old and relatively discolored here and there. A few pages were loosened and some actually fell off the back of the book completely. Carefully flipping through the book, Yuri nonchalantly found out the first part of the book was about the history about how the first Guild ever was formed. How the people came together thus created Dangrest as it was today. There was also a part telling about the war between Guilds due to their objectives and power conflicts, and the hero who stood up, resolving the problem and then united everyone under one way. That was the first Union leader.

Yuri soon got bored of the content; he carelessly riffled through the pages while thinking this book would be a good present for Estelle despite the run down appearance. The rest part of the book was a list consisted of the identities of members from different Guilds, including the name of the Guild they belonged and their position. Suddenly, his fingers stopped at a particular page, he gasped and stared at a name, which engraved on the yellow paper with black ink. The old paper shook fiercely as Yuri could feel his whole body trembling. He hastily closed the book and walked over to the shelf that had the 'Personnel Record' labeled on it, hoping to find out some more information about the person whose name was written down on the book he had just came to aware of its existence. He needed to find more details about the man whose name was '_Einar Lowell_.'

That is right. That man was his father, Yuri's father.

* * *

Finally all the exams are over. I can now go back to do some writing. Sorry for the delay though. Hope you guys like this. I'm half way through the next chapter. Hope will update within next week. Thanks for those who reviews, and for those who put me on alert


	7. Awkward

**Chapter 7:** Awkward

Nothing had ever gone right for him. He really was born under an unlucky star. Yuri bitterly thought while tossing another record back into the shelf far more misplaced than its original position. Quickly flipping through another record, he felt himself getting nowhere. Yuri had been searching the personnel record shelf ever since he found out the fact that his father actually used to belong to a guild. Although which guild he belonged to was still a mystery.

Yuri had been at it for two hours continuously, despite how much effort he threw into the task he was trying his best to do, he found nothing. The sun was busily setting when he searched his way through half of the shelf. The fainted orange rays of sunlight graced through the glass window, attacking the raven-haired man's eyes in the process. The whole room sank in a deep orange glow, and his eyes hurt from reading too much. He decided to take a break from it. A nice and delicious dinner would do the trick.

Lifting up his numb body up wearily, due to sitting in one position for too long Yuri groaned at the suddenly stiff pain at his back. He gave off a little cursed noise as he carefully managed to move himself away from the stack of messy records build up and up, one after another. Carefulness was not always high on his personalities list. But today was different.

* * *

Yuri spent the rest of his way to the dining room thinking about his father. Einar Lowell was a man of justice and courage. He had a strong and fierce bravery, yet not lacking a passionate loving heart. Yuri remembered one time when he was attacked by a rhinosuss, at the moment when he thought his life was over; his father was the hero in shining armor to save the day. For a brain of five years old boy, defeating a rhinosuss in one blow was way beyond incredible. He always looked up to him, and tried his best to follow his father's footsteps. Now thinking back about that, a rhinosuss was not really a problem for an adult who knew how to swing a sword without actually dropping it. Yuri bit down a small curse. No matter how heroic his father was, he still abandoned his duty as a father and a husband. For that, Yuri would never forgive him, but he couldn't bring himself to hate him entirely. He just couldn't, after all he was his father.

Keep getting lost inside his own little world; Yuri didn't realize he already passed the dining hall. Not until he felt a light tap on his shoulder that he finally got back to his sense, and recognized he almost pumped his face into a nearby pillar. He turned his head around only to be met by a worried-looking yet beautiful Krityan. Judith had her elegant blue hair tied up into a ponytail that hung naturally against her waist. Her face under the beam of moonlight reflected a perfect affability. Much to Yuri memories, the Krityan always looked beautiful even with her clothes dyed in blood of the enemies.

"What's wrong with you Yuri? You had just almost gave the blond a heart attack if he ever heard you cracked your head open because you were spacing out." Judith waved her hand in front of him as if to check whether he had waken up from his dream or not.

His heart skipped a beat when an image of Flynn in his mother hen mood dashed across his mind. Yuri brushed her hands away, assuring her that he was okay. Although by the way the Krityan looked at him, he knew that she was not going to be bought as an excuse. However, he had no intent of telling her about the reason that busily kept him from noticing his surrounding properly. Instead of answering her question, the swordsman turned around and walked back to the dining hall, with the Krityan trailing closely behind.

Judy was always a delicate and understanding person; therefore, it wasn't hard for Yuri to deal with her. She was sensitive at noticing and observing others' feelings. She would never press someone too far just to make him or her spilled out what she wanted to know. Thought it didn't apply to bad guys or in emergency cases.

* * *

The dining hall was well lit by yellow bud-shaped lamps hung around the hall, inches away from each other. The members seemed rather excited with their meals or chatting with their fellows. None of them actually noticed the presence of Yuri-the second highest boss of the Guild, yet alone someone would stand up and give him a proper greeting. It wasn't like he expected to see anything so stuffy and knightly like that. The Guild had its own rule and freedom; the members didn't have to pretend to be too busy to even notice a senior knight was walking toward just because they hated that person. No endurance, no extreme formality, and no such thing as absolute order nor 'above' and 'below' power are needed. This Guild is an ideal organization that he imagined, although this was still far more from perfect.

He grabbed a stray and began walking towards the waiting line of people, with Judy trailing behind him still. She also picked up a similar tray to him, and waited patiently behind him. Although he didn't want, he had to admit that whatever kind of eyes Judy was giving him was not pleasant. Yuri shifted uncomfortably, against the food counter as the cook lady served him one of her so called special menu. Well people need food to live, not the other way around.

Settling himself at an empty table near the window, Yuri felt a little bit relieved when he saw Judy made an attempt of joining him but then a group of female fighters persuaded her to come over. They probably wanted to ask the Krityan for a few advices on fighting techniques. A disappointed look crept across her face, as she let herself be pulled away reluctantly. Yuri knew how much she cared for him or others, but right now, all he wanted was being alone. The aloneness was granted as Yuri found himself thinking about the Capital and the Lower Quarter. The flow of his thought carried him from his rented room back in the quarter, then to the castle, and finally landed on the window of the Commandant's private chamber. The very same window he used to make his epic entrance, which in return earned him a yelling lesson about using the front door by the owner's of the said room. He could pictured the blond sat on his chair and busily signed a whole stack of paper under pressure from the Council and probably some from Sodia too. Hell, they had been putting the blond under more than necessary stress lately. The whole Knights just seem so useless; they did not know what to do if there wasn't someone to give them order. If he just gave them a few minutes alone then they would be running around like chickens without their heads. As his friend, Yuri had not done anything at all to help him recently except bringing him more troubles as gifts. The raven-haired pierced a slide of meat with the fork and mercilessly threw it into his mouths. The wind outside kept changing its direction in the tenebrous night.

* * *

The commandant didn't feel comfortable, Flynn Scifo didn't feel comfortable. Each steps his metallic boots connected the floor rang off an alert to those he past. Having a friend, who was the second highest boss of the Guild didn't allow him to earn an easy look from the guild's other members. THe Guild and the Knight doesn't always get along well with each other. It was just the nature of the two forces, stubborn from head to toes. As well as the leaders of them. Well, Flynn would never admit he was obstinate, but he knew sometimes that it took a huge amount of efforts to make him change his mind completely. He would be the first and probably the last one in this world that was capable of changing Yuri's mind. Ironically, the same seemed to apply in his case as well.

"What business do you have with our guild?" A girl stepped out from the crowd as she raised her voice a little bit too menacing, yet with a little more serious than needed. Her blond hair swung softly as she cocked her head to the side, allowing her to have a better access of observing the mighty Commandant. Not that Flynn usually thought of himself as a mighty leader, but the expression in her eyes actually proved that point. No, he must be modest.

"May I speak to your leader? The boss of Brave Vesperia Guild."

The girl stood in silent for a few seconds then motioned him to go with her by waving her hand. As Flynn followed her lead, the other members slowly returned to their current work. But none of them seemed to forget to shoot him an annoying glance when he walked past them.

* * *

The torches hung along the wall timidly lighted the hallway. Although it was not such a great idea, but Flynn once lost in an argument about whether they should use torches or the spirit lamp. According to Flynn, spirit was way much better and safer, but the hard-head of an idiot wasn't willingly to take his advice, yet again.

"Hey boss, you have a guest." The door of the library swung open. This was the sixth time Flynn set foot inside the Brave Vesperia Headquarter, but the last time he was here, the leader's office was not- according to his memories, the room was supposed to be at the western part of the building not the opposite direction-inside the library.

The image of the huge bookshelves of books and documents greeted his eyes. Although it was not as big as the library of Aspio once was. However, the library of Aspio had gone, now this one would most likely become the biggest library in the entire world.

"Hey boss, are you here?" the high-pitched voice of the girl echoed throughout the room calling for her leader. They walked for a few more minutes before the person Flynn didn't expect to see decided to make his epic appearance.

A loud noise of fallen documents destroyed the sacred quietness of the space. A few nerds shifted their attention to whoever dared to disturb them from studying. Inside the mess, a certain raven-haired crawled his way through the swarm of papers and data. At first, his head was the only thing acknowledged his existence, and then followed by an arm and a curse. Flynn could not make out the entire sentence, but knowing Yuri, he was probably using his favorite phrase. As he moved on his feet to help his friend got out from the mess.

"Honestly Yuri, I do not know what you are trying to do. But getting buried by books and die is the one of the most ridiculous causes of death in history. Can you do the world a favor and just be a little bit more careful with your doings?" Flynn could obviously hear his voice sounded a bit higher and louder than usual. Yuri once teased him about how it is easy for him to go into his mother hen mode but the thing is Flynn has to do so because the man who was in front of him right now was a magnet for troubles.

"Man, you sound exactly like Estelle, you know. Mother hen!" Yuri snapped back half-consciously. His eyes were still a bit dazzled. Letting out a small groan, Yuri stroke the back of his neck to soften the pain he knew was existed inside his head. Damn those documents were so high up and there wasn't any damn chair around.

"But someone has to make up for your lack of carefulness." Flynn shot back, holding no intend to lose this argument.

"Jeez, it is not big of a deal." Yuri yelled back, a little pissed off added in his tone.

"If I'm not having an important mission to report to your boss, you will not get away with this." Flynn turned his head towards the guide girl, and then said, "Please continue leading the way."

The girl looked back at him, amusingly. Her gaze shifted from Yuri then to Flynn, as she let out a small chuckle, "You said you have business to do with our leader right? There he is, the man who is standing in front of you is this Guild's boss. Only for now I guess."

What did she just say? This man? The boss? Of the Brave Vesperia? This magnet for trouble? No that was of course possible. Yuri after all was one of the first members, who responsible for the founding of the Guild. It was no doubt to put him into one of the leading positions.

"You mean Yuri is the leader of the Brave Vesperia? But the person I met last time was…" According to Flynn memories, the person greeted him last time was a respected man, whose bravery and courtesy were just as noble as Flynn did not expect from a leader of a guild. Well, the man himself was around forty years of his lifetime; his appearance would earn him respect from the Knights, and the way he spoke was so formal for a person who was born and raised inside the Den of Guilds itself.

His best friend snorted at that, wriggled his index finger playfully, "I know I'm not that trustworthy as the old man, but at least I know how to take responsibility and play with it until the end."

"He is right. The current boss left us two weeks ago to go on his so-called journey in order to find a new path for the Guild to walk on. I doubt he would actually come back with some decent results though. Anyway, for being the second highest boss around here Yuri is the for now boss." As the girl spoke, her face bore with an amusing expression. Despite how much the other members dislike the Empire and the Knights; she couldn't bring herself to hate the Commandant in person. He was after all an interested person to observe and the way the two of them easily got into an argument over such trivial things was as true as the rumors. Childhood friends, the guild and the Imperial Knights, huh? How would the two manage to keep up their friendship with the raising tension between the two forces that they were leading? Interesting matter for observing indeed.

Flynn titled his head a little and abruptly opened his mouth with a speech in such a knightly tone that Yuri always hated to hear, especially from his best friend's mouth, "I am Flynn Scifo, the Commandant of the Imperial Knights. I am here to ask for assistance from the Brave Vesperia Guild on the matter of extermination of a swarm of new formed monsters in the Aurnion vicinity."

"Got it, we will send our men to Aurnion right this evening. Eerie, you go and inform those who are on the list of involvement in this fight immediately pack their things and be ready to leave."

"Roger!"

The girl quickly left the library as soon as her order was placed on her. Before that, she turned and gave Flynn a thoughtful smirk that made him curiously wondered what did that for.

"Your Guild has the Imperial Knights' appreciated gratitude." The blond bowed his head, in which left Yuri felt a bit annoying.

"Alright, you can drop that stupid formality, there are only us now." Yuri scratched the back of his neck wearily and began cleaning the mess of documents and papers lying mercilessly on the floor. 'This gonna be a pain.'

Flynn bent down also to offer him a hand, "Let me help, you alone will make it even messier." A satisfy smile painted the blond's lips as he felt he had bested Yuri in this argument wondrously. Well, the Commandant had to have a win once in awhile.

After a few minutes of organizing, they finally managed to pull things off together, although the correct order would have to rely on the librarians to check though. Nothing they could do more about this anyway.

"Say Yuri, what are you doing here? Since when did you have interested in books? It must be an influence from Lady Estellise?" Flynn started the conversation after a long amount of awkward and discomfort silence between them. Both of them now retreated to the central area amid the shelves, where there were a couple of empty tables were available for them to settle down.

"Nah, I was just trying to find some information about… something." Nonchalantly Yuri replied. His gaze focused on a group of fighters outside the window. They were practicing their combat skills by fighting each other. However, it was such a bad idea to have a training ground next to the library where required extremely quietness and peace. Again, his eyes wandered back to the Commandant, who was also looking at him, fixedly. Those blue eyes reflected a certain questioning feelings. What was it that bothering his best friend? Wait! Surely, Flynn was not thinking about that, was he?

The blond continued staring at him still. His mouths muttered something that Yuri couldn't quite catch it. Something between, _'No, it…'_ and _'But he'. _Okay, this was getting weirder and weirder. Although he could guess what was it that the blond was thinking but, he dared not to say it out. Leaning on the table with one hand, Yuri reached out to brush away a few strand of hair attempt to conceal those blue, beautiful orbs that was always Yuri's most favorite part to gaze into, subconsciously. However, Yuri hadn't realize how stupid his act was until he registered the expression on the said Commandant's face. And his face was just as the same.

Few faint strands of red shade painted the blond's cheek as he stared at the other man, not fixedly but surprisingly and the look on his face was indescribable. Although, it was a shame that Yuri actually had his face just as pathetic. His first attempt was trying to make the blond stop fixing his gaze at him, and the second he knew, he did something that he was not supposed to do. The awkward silence occupied the air around them as Yuri shifted in his chair uncomfortably. All right, one way to get out of this was being sarcastic and Yuri-ish.

"What is it Commandant? You do know that you're very easy to blush, don't you?" He faked the most sarcastic smile he could pull off. The priceless look on the Commandant face was truly something. Yuri would rather keep the image to himself though, since he had no interest in sharing this with the others.

"Yuri…you…" It seemed the coherent part of his brain only allowed him to form just that. Now a realization hit him, he wondered what was wrong with Flynn that he blushed so hard just by a single and simple touch. Could it be that…? No, Yuri snapped at himself, there was no way the blond would actually aware about his feeling. And it didn't look like the others would go and babble things into his ears. Now on the second thought, the old man might have done something.

"No, never mind." Flynn finally managed to shake thing off. "I need to go and prepare for the trip tomorrow." He stood up in a somehow unsteady posture and started walking towards the entrance as Yuri followed closely side by side. Flynn could feel the raven-haired fixed his eyes on him, but decided to keep silent following him all the way back to the chamber that was reserved only for guests and visitors.

Flynn brought out his hand in attempt to turn the knob but Yuri walked past him and yanked the door open none too casually. The boss stumbled onto the only one bed in the room as he wrapped himself around the pillow, enjoyably. A relaxing sound escaped his lips as Flynn couldn't help but raising his voice again, "Yuri, must I remind that this is suppose to be my room? If you want to sleep, why don't you go to your own one?"

"Sorry, but I have none. The only place for me to sleep is that boring library. But I don't feel like sleeping inside that stuffy place after spending almost four hours in it." Yuri lazily replied. His head ducked deeper into the pillow, letting his yawn went distortedly into the soft matter. It was a terrible excuse, he knew, but part of it was true. He tired of sleeping with books as his pillow and documents as blanket, surely a real bed and mattress was way much better. He closed his eyes, as sleep slowly occupied his mind, and Yuri plugged himself in a blissful darkness.

Flynn gazed down at his best friend's sleeping face; the mirth and playfulness were replaced by calm and innocent curves. His breathing was even and peaceful. The Commandant intended to yell at him for not sparing him any room, which caused him to end up sleeping on the sofa. But after seeing his best friend like this, he didn't have a heart to do such thing. Flynn took off his amour, slipping himself out of heavy boots as he settled himself down sofa opposite the bed. His eyes quickened a glance at the raven-haired as the smile slipped from his face, _'Yuri, when will you stop hiding things from me?'_

* * *

The thought of Yuri being so unpredictable and mysterious kept bothering him during the long distance traveled to Aurnion. It followed him and his knights when they boarded the ship, gathering information about the attack from the local residents and distracted him from concentrating on his fighting.

Flynn raised his sword up in defense with the metal crashed against sharp claws of the enemy, as one of his knights slipped behind the brutal creature and sent it to hell mercilessly with a fatal stab from behind. He smiled in thanks to the knight as he promptly himself to focus on yet another beast. There were large numbers of them that needed to be taken care of. Then at the time, he would take a quick break just to register the current formation into his head, and watched Yuri, making sure that the man was not going to try anything stupid and end up losing his life for being so reckless. Flynn sometimes found himself wondering about the lady he met at the restaurant that night, and how much he felt attracted towards her. Even Lady Yuria didn't make him feel this way nor any of the girls he had met during his life up until now could make him feel this way. Then why did his heart beat faster and his stomach flipped oddly just by looking at the girl? What the hell happened to him?

"Oi Flynn. Behind you." Flynn snapped back into reality as he sidestepped just in time to dodge a monster that was charging towards him. He was just spacing out and almost losing his life. Yuri ran up and checked on him, smirking at him for a moment but then backed down because he showed no reaction towards the teasing. He muttered a small 'thank you' then went back to his mission. He could feel Yuri was staring at him, concernedly. And he felt ashamed of himself, for no particular reason.

* * *

With the help of the Brave Vesperia, the swarms of monsters were perfectly wiped out. The casualty was none while only exhaustion and minor injuries tortured the knights and the guild's fighters. The healers from both armies were running around, treating wounds and scratches diligently. Flynn felt proud of himself and his men, also feeling grateful for the participation of the Guild. They would not be this lucky if the other force wasn't here.

After casting a healing spell on some small cuts and bruises for himself, Flynn started walking around to check on his soldiers and the treating process. Then he realized the curiously absence of a man called Yuri Lowell, thus making him wandered around the campsite and asking for Yuri's whereabouts. Some of the Guild's members refused to give him direction; some just looked away or pretended to be busy when they saw him approaching. He had no choice but to get the information from the locals at last.

With Yuri being a famous swordsman and having a unique appearance, Flynn needlessly put too much efforts into learning the raven-haired current whereabouts. Following the direction a woman gave him, Flynn made his way towards the western part of the town, where he and Yuri used to help each other polishing their swordsman skills.

From a distance, he could see the said raven-haired, who was leaning his back against the wooden tower used by the people to keep watch, with his hands folded across his chest. It was hard to make out Yuri's facial expression, but by the way of his posture, Flynn confidently believed that he was not pleased, and somewhat pissed off. When the distance became closer, close enough for Yuri to hear him and the other way around, Flynn opened his mouth, calling out for his friend. But then, no word was coming out, and surprisingly Flynn found himself hiding behind the nearby stone wall.

"Long time no see, Yuri." He knew this voice, this gentle and silky tone.

"What are you doing here?" This owner of this voice was also familiar, too familiar to him that he was surprised to feel why Yuri's voice sounded so serious and…dangerous.

* * *

Yay, I finally managed to update with all the renovations of my house (which leads to the disconnection of internet) Anyway, Hope you guys like this one.

A/N: My school wants to change uniform, my friend and I decided to show them the school costume of the Brave Vesperia with of course different in some parts (due to the copyright things), and the Mr. Head of the School is considering to actually have it as our school new uniform. *squeal*-that means there will be a lot of Flynn and Yuri walking around the school for me to look at. Gosh! XD

Anyway, thanks for reading.


	8. Confusion

**Chapter 8: **Confusion

"Long time no see."

"What are you doing here? Yuria?" Yuri looked at her, at the person he didn't expect to see at that place and time. What was a noble girl doing at a town that inconveniently located at the other end of the world, and well dressed like that?

"What is your place that forbids me to go anywhere I desire?" She looked quite lovely for normal eyes with wavy blond hair tied together into a pigtail. Her emerald dress painted her white skin out as she stood delicately like a fragile flower. Well, the appearance could deceive lots of souls, but not him, or so he let himself believed it.

"Then what is your place to answer my question with another question?" The girl was annoying, and not much of her was changed after five years, not the look and not the personalities.

The girl brought her hand up over her mouth as a laugh was restrained to escape her cherry pink lips, "You are still as cold as ever, Yuri. Can't you be friendlier towards your old acquaintance?"

"I am **being **friendly."

"Alright, I think it will not hurt to do you a favor by answering your question. I am here to meet up with Commandant Flynn Scifo. I heard he is having duty here, and since I was nearby so I came to greet him." Yuria smiled. A hint of truth lingered in her eyes, as Yuri recalled about what Rita said about the girl's old man. She might have nothing to do with it, but that so called nobleman might have something up his sleeve, or might be he was just wrong. Either way, he hoped that nothing was going to happen. Who would prefer a war than peace? Well, some lunatics might want to start a war and quarrel to gain benefits selfishly for themselves, but as he said, they were lunatics.

"I'm not nosey, but you said you were somewhere nearby? May I ask where is that 'somewhere nearby' of yours?"

"Are you doubting me? I am not trustworthy enough to you?"

He remained silent, kicking his leg into the grass below, not because of nervousness. He was just curious in guilty, in doubt. And a realization hit him: he was not himself at all, not the person who easily doubting others like this. People were born and given the hearts to believe in others. Some chose to throw that ability away, while some decided to treasure it. Yuri was somewhere in between, he would throw his trust away if the person was not trustworthy, and he would believe in those who willing to put their trust in him. "No."

The girl walked closer, putting one of her small delicate hand onto his chest, fondling at toned skin from the open area that his shirt revealed to her, seductively. "Well, I am so glad to hear it. From you, it means a lot. Now please excuse me, I have to go and find Commandant Flynn." She withdrew the hand, and started walking away.

"Why? Yuria? You were not like this before." Yuri found himself mentally choking on his words, too much to think, and too much to understand.

"People grow overtime Yuri. I do too. I'm a naïve kid no longer. And there is something in life that you have to exchange another thing for it."

"Is your exchange worth it?"

The girl kept her mouth sewed shut. For a fleeting moment, Yuri believed he saw a liquid crystal dropped from the corner of her eyes. "Yes, it's totally worth it." And she walked away, without letting him to have a chance to verify if what his eyes told him was true or not.

* * *

Flynn had seen, and understood things. Yuri and Lady Yuria were old acquaintances. But he'd ever heard anything about this sort of acquaintance from the raven haired himself before. Yuri was a man of mystery, but for this kind of simple thing to be hidden away from him, as though he was not trustworthy enough for Yuri to reveal one of many secrets to him. His heart clinched, twisting by a thought of easing his pride for the better part of the world. He should try to stop silently sulking and letting his mind relaxed a little.

The Commandant turned away, and started walking off to the camping ground. A disturbed feeling of instability lingered inside his stomach. Flynn mentally told himself not to let those trivial things affect his mind, and yet he disappointedly found himself leaning against a freshly built brick wall, sighing.

Eyeing the blue sky above his head slightly, Flynn closed his eyes, letting sun and wind overflowed into his heart and cleared away unwanted doubt. He hated the fact that Yuri always run ahead of him, so fast, so unstoppable, eventually the distance between them grew apart further and further, and the last one to finish the race was him.

Sunlight warmed his face, burned away the urge of breaking his self-control. Flynn stood, unmoving, in the embrace of afternoon sun, as his heart ached with no reason. The beats seemed to be disordered, faster than usual, he lightly noticed. Why now between Yuri and him stood so many doubts and secrets? Why could not everything be as simple as when they were kids?

Because they were kids no longer?

It was not until later that Flynn finally understood about the reason behind the unknown cause of ache inside his heart.

* * *

That night, after checking on the well-being of his members, Yuri found himself some spare time to kill. And after half an hour wandering around the town vicinity, he subconsciously stopped himself in front of the Imperial Knight HQ. Yuri gazed at the wooden door, half of his mind insisted him to knock, but the other half seemed to tell him to do otherwise. He shouldn't bother the blond after how rough the day had given him. But again, barging into the Commandant's life and turned everything up side down was always his fun to have. Smiling wickedly, he kicked the door open like the way he usually treated an overrated entrance, "Oi Flynn! Are you still awake?"

And the presence of unexpected someone inside the room twitched his mood. Yuria was there, sitting elegantly as she had always been on the couch opposite to Flynn's, as the two seemed to have quite an interesting, lovely chitchat. Flynn had his hand lying over his stomach with ten fingers crossed together. His back casually leaned against the back of the chair, as a wide smile spread across his face. While the girl sat with her delicate legs crossed, and long, bony fingers played around with her blond wavy hair, also the same sort smile ruled her full lips.

"Am I interrupting anything?" Yuri found himself blurted out that question even though somewhere in his mind, a protest of saying, "What are the two of you doing at this late hour of day, especially you Yuria" instead flamed up smolderingly. Weird, to having such a strange thought!

"Not at all, we were just telling jokes to each other." Flynn replied, with his hand reached out, motioning for Yuri to come inside.

'_Since when did the uptight Flynn start to make joke? Now that was even weirder.' _Yuri thought to himself. He stepped inwardly inside the room, observing the blond's face carefully while doing so. His eyes seemed to be fluttering in a nameless relaxation that Yuri only remembered seeing it for only so much times throughout their adulthood. The raven-haired approached the chair that his best friend was sitting; he flattened his bottom on the arm of the chair, while placing his left hand on the blond's shoulder, in a protective way. It would appear to be a friendly cause of action to Flynn, but to Yuria, it would seem like a threat, or so Yuri hoped.

"Sir Flynn, I think it is about time for me to leave. It seems that Mr. Lowell here has something to discuss with you, and my presence here might be a disturbance for the both of you." To Yuri's amused unexpectedness, the aristocratic girl stood up and bided a fare well to the Commandant before making herself towards the exit.

The blond offered to accompany her back to the inn, but she politely refused. He finally managed to let her to agree for him to see her off at the cross section between the HQ and the residential area.

"You didn't have do go that far. The inn is not even a hundred meters away from here. Besides, this town is perfectly safe except for the monsters." Yuri flung himself onto the couch saying without facing the blond.

Then came the Commandant's responsible reply, "It is my duty to protect every one. It would be dangerous for a girl to walk alone at this hour, and it's my responsibility to make sure she walk home safe."

"I wouldn't be worried too much if it was Rita. She could always deep-fry whoever trying to get close to her with bad intentions. But that Yuria girl is not a delicate flower either. She has thorns, and lots of it." He slightly kept his eyes focused on the ceiling, trying hard to ignoring the look he knew was sitting on Flynn's face.

"Even if she is capable of protecting herself, I still want to make sure that she is safe. It's a common and right thing to do."

"I see. So it was not because she is Yuria?"

"What do you mean by that?" Flynn looked at him, his eyes flickered, wondering what the meaning behind that blunt statement was.

"Your wife soon to be?"

Busted. Yuri amusingly watched the blond's face turned all sorts of interesting colors. However, the idea wasn't to his liking. Blinking his eyes, Yuri felt an unknown feeling welled up inside him as he annoyingly changed the topic into a more relaxed way. "So how did the meeting go? I have been meaning to ask, but you know, duty and things."

"Uhm, everything went smoothly, I think. However, there was an unexpected guest made an appearance, and now I couldn't stop my mind from thinking about her." Flynn sighed.

Hearing this from Flynn make Yuri jumped a bit. Flynn didn't fall in love with Lady Leila, did he? If he did, then the whole matter would turn complicated later, much more complicated than it already had.

Yuri made no reaction, so the blond went on, "She is Lady Estellise's friend. Somehow seeing her, made my heart beat faster. She made me totally forgot that Lady Yuria was the one that I supposed to get to know. That lady reminded me of you Yuri a lot, probably because of her black hair and black eyes. Oh, and the way she talked was very open and friendly too. However, she didn't talk much about herself, as if she afraid of revealing something that she must keep it a secret."

"Re…really?" Yuri couldn't even look at him in the eye. He was too embarrassed to do so. He turned his face facing the inside of the couch, thanks to that his red face was concealed from the blond Commandant.

"I think…so." Flynn remained silent for a minute, then he asked, his face cast downward, "Do you think I am a jerk Yuri?"

The raven-haired confused at the question that his best friend had just threw at him. "What do mean you are a jerk? You have been a jerk all this time."

Flynn shot a deadly glare at him, and Yuri decided to back up. He would achieve nothing for pissing the Commandant off, so he better stayed silent and let the Commandant continued his story.

After waiting for the black-haired swordsman to settle down, Flynn started explaining to him how he first had a crush on Lady Yuria. But then later when he met Lady Leila at the dinner earlier tonight, the feeling for Lady Yuria disappeared somewhere into thin air. Flynn was ashamed of playing around with other's feelings, especially girls. And he was confused didn't know which girl he actually hold feelings for.

As much to Yuri's surprise, his Commandant friend suffered from the similar problem that he had. What is love anyway? Why does it make people getting confuse over such a natural feeling? Your heart does not always tell you the truth.

"But why do you like that Leila girl? What is your reason? You just met her, and hardly know her." Strangely, Yuri found himself speaking in an unstable tone, trying a bit failed to add his usual sarcastic self into it. He wondered if Flynn noticed it or not, but if it was the blond, he probably would.

Flynn remained silent for a long moment before picking up the pace, "I don't know. She held a kind of atmosphere that attracts you to want to know more about her-mysterious would be the word. Besides, she felt so familiar, as if I've known her for a long time."

Swallowing his breath slowly and roughly and trying to control his heartbeats in fear that the other would make out something was going wrong with him. Yuri shifted uncomfortably, then sat up, intending to leave the conversation half finished. But then, he couldn't move a toe, finding himself caught in the subtle shape of expressions on his childhood best friend's face.

A look of longing for something beautiful reflected in his eyes, gazing out the window into the gentle veil of the dark night. The blond hair clung caressingly against his cheek; stick out to the right in his usual hairstyle. Did it feel feathery soft despite the sharp look? Then he blinked, realizing the blue eyes were staring back at him, sadness swam, imprinted inside his heart. The sadness was contagious, and in a split moment, Yuri blunted out something that he shouldn't say. But at the time, all he was thinking about was trying to wipe the sadness away from his best friend's face. "Do you want to meet her again?"

The answer, even though was not immediate, was yes.

Turning on his feet, Yuri left the HQ after saying good night to Flynn but not before stealing a glance at the blond's blue eyes. In his heart, he knew that was a start of something. Unexpected and worth the waiting.

* * *

"What, you want to appear before him as Lady Leila? Are you going out of your mind?" Even though sitting quite far from Rita, Yuri could feel his ears tinkling from the too much volume of the young mage's yelling.

The Brave Vesperia once again gathered at the inn Comet, inside the small rented room to hear the bold declaration of the raven-haired swordsman, which seemed crazy, at least to Karol and Rita. However, the expression on the Princess and the Krityan spoke otherwise. They seemed pretty interested with the idea-that he hoped did not involve with experimenting dresses and accessories on him.

"Are you sure about that Yuri? Don't you think it is too risk appearing in front of him with that appearance?" Estelle sat down besides him, trying to avoid getting too close to Repede, as she knew not to risk having herself running around with the said furious dog behind.

Yuri stayed silent for a while, as if debating with himself whether his rush decision was right or wrong.

Judith sat on the window's sill, her eyes focused outside the window, with one finger rested on her chin thoughtfully. She titled her head, leaning further out onto the outside space. Then without turning around, she said, "Personally, I don't think it would be a bad idea at all." The Krityan giggled. "I already had a beautiful design for the dress that Lady Leila going to wear in my head."

Yuri winked his eyes at her in appreciation, "I leave it to you Judy."

She replied with a soft smile, before pulling Estelle and Rita on their feet, "Come now girls, we have a lot to do. You come too, Karol."

The former boss of Brave Vesperia reluctantly stood up from his chair, moving in a lazy motion towards the door where the others were waiting for him. The young boy glanced at Yuri, hoping that the older man could do something to bait him out. But Yuri only waggled a finger, shooing him off with a wryly smile. Karol sighed, before proceeding after the girls whom were now making their way down the stairs, busy chatting over which materials they should use for the new dress design.

* * *

"Judith? Is there something funny? I have been seeing you smiling ever since." The pink haired princess looked at her friend, asking while they were wandering around from shops to shops.

"Didn't you notice it?" The confused expression she received from the princess was content enough to be served as an answer. The beautiful Krityan picked up a piece of an orange cloth, examining it carefully but then she placed it back on the shelf. _'The color is too bright,'_ she thought.

"But what is it that so funny, please tell me Judith." The princess asked insistently. She knew that it had to have something to do with Yuri and the matter of him dressing up as Lady Leila, but it did not sound funny at all.

After putting down another piece of cloth, the Krityan finally let out a sigh, "Alright, let's me tell you." She pulled the princess down onto a chair and continued, "Don't you notice that Yuri said Flynn wanted to meet Lady Leila again. And why is that?"

Estelle titled her head, the brows remained sew together in a thoughtful moment, but then smoothed again when the green eyes amusingly opened with a sudden realization, "Oh, is that because if Flynn doesn't have any feeling for Lady Leila then he would not want to meet her right?"

"There you go." Judith leaned back against the chair, taking the whole view of the store into her head as she tried to scan out any materials that would prove to be suitable for her next design. But none of them seemed to catch her attention. They might have to visit another store. Again, she found herself giggling. It was so much fun watching this whole mushy drama.

* * *

Sir Glentworth sat on his chair, as the old man skimmed over the paper he was holding. A devilish smile crept across the man's face. Behind him, red rays of sunlight reflected onto his eyes, he seemed to be satisfied about his awesome plan.

"Everything is all set, Sir." Besides him, a man stepped out from the scarlet velvet curtain. The man himself was very weird, wearing an armor of black; the matching boots collided on the floor with each step heavily as he marched towards, facing the desk.

"Good job." The older man said, his voice rose up in poisoned satisfaction, "Soon I will have everything."

His laugh echoed distortedly throughout the room. His daughter watched him, keeping silent thoughtfully, her hand clenched together as she brought them up to her face, praying for something that was being held secretive all for herself.

* * *

Sorry for the delay (I know, I'm guilty) Please enjoy this chapter, even though it's quite short than the usual chapters. Please be patient with me!

Reviews are extremely welcomed.


	9. Unfortunate

Hi guys! Sorry for the long waiting, ICGSE exams are eating me alive. T^T

Anyways, thanks for everyone who added this story on your alert and left reviews. It meant a lot to me at this point of time.

* * *

**Chapter 9:** **Unfortunate**

The blond Commandant opened the door of his room; unexpectedly found Princess Estelle and Lady Leila were already stood in front of him, smiling. Flynn tried to hold back a surprised yell, as he never expected to see either two of the girls coming at this early in the morning.

"Go…good morning Princess Estellise, and to you too Lady Leila." Flynn opened the door wilder, inviting them inside. "Please come in and have a seat."

"I am terribly sorry, Flynn. But in truth, I had promised Rita that I will go out with her and help with the research. I know it is not right to ask this of you, but can you accompany Leila for today?" The Princess looked up at Flynn with her green eyes, and he could feel a wave of regret ran across those beautiful orbs.

The Princess held her hands onto the black haired lady, "I am so sorry Leila, if only I knew that you were coming today…"

The other girl shook her head, as the black lock of hair swung softly into the rhythm of the movement. The elegance in her eyes stood out, so captivating as Flynn found himself staring at the girl, even though it was impolite and awkward.

After Estellise waved her hand goodbye, the tomboy princess disappeared around the corner. All that left was the blond Commandant and the princess's friend. Flynn reached his hand out and invited the lady into his room.

He slowly watched her, whom seemed to be interested in the activity of scanning his room. Flynn stepped towards the desk, moving his hands in order to organize the stack of paper work that was lying messily after one night of fighting using pen and imperial seal. The blond glanced over his shoulder and saw Leila sat on his bed and was looking at the picture of him and the Brave Vesperia Guild on the draw table. The black eyes glued to the frame as if that was the only thing in his room that attractive. Suddenly, he felt appreciated towards the idea of buying some more furniture to decorate his room that Yuri gave him long time ago. He should reconsider it.

"That picture…?"

"Yes?" Flynn turned his head, seeing the girl approached him, stealing a glance over his shoulder to have a look at the picture behind him.

Flynn realized that she was talking about the drawing of Yuri and him hung over on the wall above his work desk about a few meters. It was such a childish drawing, but he treasured it anyway. Because, after all it was his tenth birthday gift that was handmade by Yuri. He always kept it inside his belongings, even when he moved from the Lower Quarter to the castle.

"It was from a dear friend of mine. We have been best friend for more than ten years." Flynn smiled at the lady, a hint of pride hidden inside the blue eyes whenever he was talking about that particular raven-haired. He knew he should not get himself become too obsessive over the man, but something seemed wrong with him lately. "Would you like to take a walk? The weather outside is nice today, I think it will do you some good."

The lady nodded her head in agreement before going out of the room and waited for Flynn to change his clothes. A few minutes later, the two of them were trolling around the castle's garden.

* * *

At this time of the year, the garden was an ideal place for setting ones' mind at ease. The lukewarm sunlight, the graceful, charming scent of dozen types of flowers flooded the blond's mind when he and the girl marched deeper into the garden. Everything of this scenery blended perfectly together in a harmonious melody of nature. Flynn smiled into the atmosphere, his heart raced against the changing wind. The blond lock of hair swung softly, flapping on his cheek caressingly.

Stealing a glance at the lady, Flynn found the reflection of himself within the deep black, yet strangely familiar eyes of the girl. His heart started racing unpredictably, and the air, too.

It was awkward.

To shoo away the odd aura, Flynn started easing into the conversation, after the two finally settled down a bench made of green marble, delicately stood in front of bushes of orchid and roses. The sky was clear and so pretty blue, the sun spread out its golden embrace to all living beings.

"So, how long have you been a friend of Lady Estellise?"

"Three years ago or so. I honestly do not remember. However, her kindness and may be a bit recklessness made me want to look after her and help her however I can. It must be a difficult job for you to keep an eye on her, does it not?" Leila brushed a few strands of hair and tucked it behind her ear, revealing a gorgeous earring probably made from silver. Normally, Flynn did not at all care about how the other girls dressed, but today the get-up of the girl sat next to him could not let his eyes wonder elsewhere. She had her black hair stretch out, and quite in conjunct with the black-purple dress and a pair of black boots. She always wore black, as if to hide something about herself. Like the dark always hidden itself inside the zone of light, then taking advantage of the bright light and it slipped away without much effort. And that was what Yuri usually did.

"No, it is my duty to keep her safe. However, even if it wasn't for my duty I would always protect her."

"That is good. I am so glad that she has you as one of her friends. That girl always works too hard and often pushes herself. So we need to relentlessly keep an eye on her."

A half of hour past by and Flynn found himself and Leila kept their conversation about a certain pink-haired princess. It was amused because Flynn and the lady had quite a lot in common. However, it was quite annoying because he wanted to spend the time learning more about the girl he was fond of. However, the girl called Leila possessed a very high skill of avoiding and changing topic. Every time he started asking about her background, the girl immediately pretending not listen to his question and went on with another story about Estellise. _'Well, we are not close friend or anything. It is understandable for her to keep her private life her own. There is plenty of time; she will become more open to me when we become closer to each other.' _Flynn thought contently.

They kept going on talking, and eventually they ran out of topic to talk about. A sting of oddness crept across the comfortably warm feelings of the garden. Flynn leaned back, supporting his posture by his two hands, and looked up into the sky. The sunlight splashed on his face as the lady next to him laughed a little then did the same thing. The gentle moment of being with Leila made him feel nostalgia, a feeling of missing the old days when he was still a sullen ten years old kid. Meeting Lady Yuria gave him a new experience of learning something new, an anxious feeling of discovery. While Leila, even though a stranger, but she had a great impact of familiarity on him, being near her brought him back to his past and friends.

Flynn sat straight back up, intending to open his mouth to say something before he was abruptly interrupted by one of his knight.

Daniel was the man's name, a newly started knight under Sodia's Brigade. He probably came running here without catching his breath.

"What is the matter?" Flynn stood up and helped the knight to his feet.

"Something terrible had happened sir. An unidentified group had attacked the His Highness Ioder's chariot when he was on the way back to the capital from Dangrest. And sir, Master Ioder was seriously injured."

Master Ioder was injured, who could have done something like that. Flynn stole a glance at the lady and muttered an apology before running off to check on the emperor. The young man got injured and that was all because of his irresponsibility. The commandant clenched his teeth as he made his way to Ioder's chamber. On the way, he saw the maids and knights ran disorderly all the hallway.

* * *

Flynn spread open the door leading to the King's chamber. Sodia was already there, standing at the corner before coming up and greet him, "Commandant, sir!"

"How is Master Ioder?" Flynn looked over the bed, the Emperor was being taken pretty well of. Even though his face showed some colors, but he was still in a pretty bad shape, above all he still remained unconscious.

The healers closed his medical kit, taking a final temperature check on the Emperor, then handed a paper to the maid, whom was standing nearby and gave her instruction for fixing the Prince some medicine. The maid nodded and quietly left.

"Commandant Flynn, Sir." The healer turned to him, started, "Please do not be worry. Even though His Highness lost a great amount of blood, but he is fine now. He just needs sometime to rest and he will recover."

A sigh of relief escaped from his lips as he felt a heavy weight was lifted from his shoulder. His Highness was all right, but Flynn could not bring himself to smile just yet. There were many things for him to investigate now that such a tremendous incident had occurred. He would expect a meeting with the Council's member soon. Flynn motioned for Sodia to come with him as the two of them proceeded out of the room.

"How is the Emperor?"

Flynn turned on his head, surprisingly to find the raven-haired lady looking at him. Why was she still here? He thought that she must have already left. He glanced over at Sodia, whose eyes were deep in confusion and surprise, although it was not the same kind of surprise that Flynn held.

"His Highness is fine now. I thank you for your kindness on his behalf." Flynn nodded his head in attitude, and then turned to Sodia, "Please proceed to the meeting room and wait for me there. I want to hear a complete report on this incident."

Sodia muttered a 'roger' and after that she left, but not before stealing a look at the black-haired lady. _'Who is that girl? I've never seen her before, and what is the relationship between her and the Commandant?'_ But then she decided to leave the matter alone.

The girl gazed over the closing door of the master Ioder's chamber, concerning. She probably worried about the young King. She then shifted her attention to the Commandant, asked, "Do you know the reason behind this attack?"

Flynn shook his head for a reply. Just like the girl, he was also clueless. As for who, and why they did this, he had no idea. He had some doubts about it, but he could not say it because all were hypothetic. He may be wrong, and he did not want to regret because of his foul mouth. "I am sorry. But at this point, I am afraid that we know nothing about the situation."

The girl nodded her head, agreeably. Putting her hand through the black silky bang of hair, Leila sank deep in her own private thought. And that made Flynn felt a little odd, she did not have anything to involve with this, but yet the expression on her face showed him that she was thinking about who could be the possible person behind all this.

"Have Estelle known about this?"

"I…I think that she has not." Indeed, if the Princess had heard about this incident, she would probably fly over here with that strange machine of , because, after all His Highness Ioder is a relative of her, and a dear cousin of her.

"Lady Leila, please do not talk about this matter to the outside. If possible, we would want to keep it a secret, since the news may cause a big commotion on our people." Flynn said, asking the lady to keep it to herself. It would be no good if this news got out.

Leila nodded her head without a moment of hesitance, "Don't worry, I will."

Flynn waved after the lady as he saw her off at the castle's gate. He had thought that today was his lucky that he got a chance of seeing the black-haired lady but even spent time alone with her. However, the day turned out to be a terrible turns of event. The commandant glanced at the small figure of the girl until it disappeared down the stairs, then he walked off to the conference room, expecting a report on the attack, and more likely, a meeting with the Council members would follow up after that.

* * *

"Yuri, have you heard that the Emperor was almost got killed?"

"Ah… what about it?" Yuri did not bother to look over to the person, as he was too busy looking over the window idly.

Eerie put a few documents onto the desk as she climbed on top of its surface. Her legs crossed as she positioned herself so that she was sitting in front of her second highest boss. Taking a look at him, Eerie amusingly found out that the man's lips was actually glitter, as if he painted it over with a colorless lipstick. Or he had just kissed a girl. "There is a rumor flying around the Guild Union about this you know. Since that young royalty was attacked on his way back from our city, so to us it was quite shocking news." Her eyes furrowed together as Eerie suddenly felt uneasy about this incident. She glanced over at Yuri, hoping that whatever going to happen would never make the man who was in front of her felt unhappy. Because, after all he was the person that she cared for the most.

* * *

After having his meeting with the Council's members, and not before checking on the well-being of the young Emperor, Flynn returned to his room when it was half past twelve at night. He slowly removed his amour, dropping the gauntlets on the table and putting off the iron boots and neatly placed it on the side of the bed. The blond Commandant walked over to the window, gazing out to face with a dark yellow crescent moon. The news he heard from the meeting was not pleased, or rather quite difficult for him to believe it was true. He was shock; however for his job always required him to, he was be able to stay calm throughout the meeting. As much as he wanted to deny it, but the expression on the young Emperor pale face justified it all. He put open the window, letting the chilly wind swam in and cuddled him.

Yuri. He wished that _he_ was here to give him support. Just like old times when he needed a shoulder to lean on, Yuri was there for him. Then a sudden and rather strange thought dashed across his mind when the blue eyes wondered to the deep black ground underneath his room.

If it was Yuri, what would he do? Flynn swallowed the urge of breaking his modesty by doing the things that he was about to do. But then, he did it anyway. Yuri could do it, and so could Flynn.

He stepped onto the sill, glancing down at the ground below, _'It is not that high as I always imagine.' _Flynn flung himself forward, and he felt the wind splashed onto his flying body before landed on the earthy ground below. Taking a look at the window which was already above him, Flynn found the new set of angle from the same solid place caused he some surprises. He did not imagine that some day he would actually exit the castle by using this kind of passage. He smirked nervously. How long has it been since the last time he did something like this? A month? A year? Or it was even seven years ago? Right before when he was a no more than a lower quarter lad.

* * *

A late night walk through the city was always a nice choice of relaxation. And the staircases led to Yuri's rented room always brought him back to nostalgic memories of childhood.

Keeping his walking speed at a steady pace, the Comet inn was not really that far away. A warm breeze-unreasonably warm for the night-played with his hair as Flynn walked past the fountain and down a few steps of stairs, and then up another staircases directly led him to the raven-haired man's room.

It took a completely four knocks for Yuri to appear behind the door. Judging by the look of him, the swordsman had not gone to bed yet. His hair was neatly tied up into a good ponytail; his broad bare chest was shown off to the outside as Flynn noticed that his shirt was hung wearily on the wooden chair near the window. He found his eyes wandering from the chair to the flesh of Yuri's bare chest, and heat clawed up his face when he realized how much he liked what he was seeing, to the unknown reason.

"Oh Flynn, didn't expect to see you here at this hour. What's up?"

"Am I not welcomed here?" The Commandant snapped back from his own world, and tried not to broadcast his unusual liking to the other, asked.

The raven-haired man laughed and pulled the door open for Flynn to come in. The room was as the same as the last time he saw it, still simple and disorganized. He watched the other man approached the window and leaned his head back against its side, momentarily entranced by the silence and the dim light. Flynn raised his voice a little bit to ask the man to put on his shirt, or he would end up catching a cold. It was a lame excuse, he knew, but he couldn't bring himself to say that the view of Yuri's upper half body was giving him a hard time to suppress the heat on his cheeks that he was certain that it was right there. Yuri shrugged his shoulder, complaining something about his mother hen mood, but put on the black shirt anyway.

Flynn helped sitting himself on the bed, reaching his hand backwards to give Repede a good petting. The dog seemed to enjoy what he was receiving, snorting comfortably.

"So, what's the matter?" Yuri started without turning his head.

"I just have something to tell you." Flynn answered, keeping his hand curled around the dog, hugging him close. But the dog struggled slightly and jumped out of his lap. Flynn had forgotten that even though he was close to him, Repede would rather refer to not be touched with such attitude.

The black orbs turned facing towards him, a nervously questioning look hung dryly. The matter he was going to talk about was not beautiful. He was so sure that it would affect the other as much as it would to him. Such a pain, but he had no choice, Yuri deserved to know about this, and after hearing him out, he may help him answer this puzzle even.

"I believe the rumor of His Highness Ioder had reached the ears of the Union's people."

"You know, rumors even though don't have wings but they can fly almost everywhere at anytime. For a straight answer, yes-the Union had gone quite crazy when the rumor reached them."

"I see. But other than that" Flynn moved his body along the edge of the bed, approaching the window, "do they know anything else?"

Yuri shook his head, while running his fingers through the long dark bangs thoughtfully, "Nah. We aren't the kind of people that like digging our nose into the Imperial's private issues, but if it involved the Union then we may want to dig as deep as we can to find out the truth. You may don't believe, but there is a whole exclusive Guild that specializes in gathering information and spying. Be careful, there probably a spy of the Union working right among your soldiers but not to your awareness."

Flynn's eyes knitted together in tension. Yuri was right, in truth the Imperial had some spies disguised as Guild's members to keep the track of the Union. He and Yuri was a practical example. One is the Commandant of the Imperial, one is the second highest boss of one of six biggest Guilds of Dangrest. And here they were, sharing secrets and news to each other like two common and skilled spies.

"But I believe your spies probably do not know about the real culprit behind the incident."

"Oh, and you do?" The black-coal colored eyes locked into his blue ones. It was so such a contradiction as his blue orbs were brightly shiny under the light of the moon, while the dark ones of Yuri were hiding behind the natural source of light and tenebrously dark.

"Yes I do. Although, it has not yet been confirmed whether it is true or not. However, at this circumstance, I…it is unfortunate to say, but all the investigations are pointing at one direction."

Flynn stopped for a bit to make sure that his raven-haired best friend still followed and understood him up to this point. When seeing nothing to serve as confusion, Flynn went on, slowly, "Brave Vesperia is under the Imperial's suspect for involving in the attack on the Emperor Ioder."

The look in Yuri's eyes was exactly the same as the image that Flynn had fearfully pictured in his head at the very first moment when this news stroke his ears. A mixture of emotions consisted of disbelief, menace, and disgust.

The silence uncomfortably ruled the room as no one said anything, and none had the attempt of breaking the eye contact anytime soon. The rising tension unknowingly to Flynn crept into the room, and before it became something like yelling and probably fighting between the two, Flynn felt relieved when Yuri decided to break the ice by asking, "Where did you get that ridiculous idea?"

"I agree that it sounds so ridiculous. But sadly, it is not since it came from the Emperor himself."

"From Ioder's mouth?"

Flynn shot a glare at the man to remind him of keeping the right manner when talking about royal, but nodded anyway. Sadness burned his heart when his best friend looked at him with that expression. That was not Yuri-liked. But at the time, Flynn could not do anything. He felt helpless.

"Tell me more about it."

The blond carefully observed his best friend, before deciding to go on filling him with more unpleasant details concerning the matter, "According to His Highness, the people whom attacked the Knights all bore the Brave Vesperia emblem on their right arms and weapons. They also used explosive artes using the exclusively spirit technology-invented by Ms. Mordio for the benefit of Brave Vesperia to wipe out the Imperial Knights' counter-attack. More importantly, the person who seemed to be the leader was recognized as a girl of around twenty."

Yuri silently listened. His face showed no change of emotion, which worried Flynn. Then his heart jumped a little when the raven-haired decided to speak after a long silence.

"A man around forty… Do you know who that man is?"

"No, we have not had any more detail about this identity… Anyway, the high authority had appointed me to be in charge of this investigation, therefore I hope we will co-operate with each other to bring this matter to justice and clear the reputation for Brave Vesperia."

A slight hint of determination blinked up on the raven-haired eyes, he slowly nodded his head in reply. Even if it was not Flynn who said it to him, he would definitely not going to let this matter alone when it involved with his Guild. No matter what happened, he would never let anything destroy the place that he had finally found for himself after how much tears and blood were sacrificed. And Flynn understood that.

Standing up from the sitting position, Flynn made his way for the door, stroking the dog's fur in the process of saying good night.

"Hey, it's already past midnight, why don't you stay here? I can share my bed, if the Commandant doesn't mind staying under one roof with this criminal that's it."

Flynn stopped midway, turning his head to stare at the swordsman, before giving him a teasing smile, "I still cannot understand you sometimes Yuri. You could just say that you miss my company, or you probably need someone to wake you up and yelling at you about the benefit of morning exercises."

"Hey, what is with that sarcasm? You're supposed to be the serious one, and I'm the mischievous."

"You know that you're mischievous?" Flynn shot back, couldn't help but smile widely.

The black eyebrows raised up as a huge grin appeared on the other man's face. Yuri shifted from his position on the window and stretched out on the other side of the bed, motioning for the blond to follow his example. "Help yourself; I'm not going to stay awake all night."

Putting off his blue shirt, Flynn sighed and lay down next to his best friend. A faint blush dashed across his face as he realized that his back collided with Yuri's bare ones. The idiot had already shrugged off his shirt, as a fool as he always was no matter how many times he warned him of catching cold. The blond pulled the blanket over his friend's top as he looked at the innocent expression on Yuri's face, he smiled to himself. Muttering a good night to the man and Repede, before Flynn shut his eyes as the blissful darkness overtook him in its gentle embrace of night.

* * *

The longest chapter I've ever done. Yay!

Reviews are appreciated. And I will update the next chapter asap.

Thanks for reading, guys!!!!


	10. Hidden

I'm terribly sorry for the delay. I have no real excuse anyway, so please do forgive me.

* * *

**Chapter 10: Hidden**

Morning found Flynn startlingly waking up, as he realized how the entire layout of furniture he was seeing was not of his own room. And the most startle thing was the presence of another person next to him. Flynn suppressed a yelp of surprise as he recalled last night's event.

It was late yesterday so Yuri asked him to stay over, and he did stay out of courtesy. Flynn glanced over to the sleeping figure, how innocence of a face the other man had. He leaned forward, pushed a few strands of black hair away from his best friend's face as he carefully got off the bed, trying not to wake the other up.

Another day had begun with Flynn put on his shirt while debating whether to or not waking up the other man and pressuring him to do some morning exercises. The memory of the day when they still lived together ran across his mind, as he chuckled to himself.

The door softly swung open after Flynn's slight push, the Commandant brought his eyes scanning the room one more time before marching towards the Imperial Castle. He would definitely do something about this, for Yuri and for himself.

* * *

The Commandant closed his eyes for a moment to temporarily avoid the intense eye contacts from the Council's members. From the far end of the long wooden table, the members consisted of more than twenty, however only ten nobles were seated here today. One of them did not bother to shoot him any contact at all in any form of a contact is described, since the red haired man was busy leaning over his notebooks, scrabbling some notes on the pages.

"Shall we start the meeting?" The man sat across to Flynn's right cleared his throat, said. His dark hair had already turned gray at the roots to the point of actually having two separately different colors.

"First, we need to hear the report from what we have on the assault. Would you mind, Commandant Flynn?"

Flynn stiffly nodded his head, reaching his hand out to take the file report from Sodia-his second in command. Their eyes met for a brief moment as she gave him an encouragement, before Flynn turned facing the Council again with a newly added confidence.

"Last week, an incident had occurred much to our disbelief and the only clue we had was the first hand witnesses, and His Majesty personally. We can also conclude the weapons, assaulting techniques and the armors of those who had fallen after the counter attack of the Imperial Knights; all bore the emblem of Brave Vesperia." Flynn felt himself clenching his teeth slightly at the final statement.

There seemed to be a silence ruling among the Council members as they discussed the matter using noiseless communication that were only understandable by those who were in the Council themselves. Just like the Knights had their own communication means that guaranteed for the sake of keeping information secret. Yet, the Guild even had their own ways of revealing the curtain so skillfully as it made Flynn wondered whether there were spies among the Knights after all.

"First of all, what we can do right now is having a meeting with the head of Brave Vesperia and those who in involves to see what they can come up to save themselves using those small, uneducated brains, in which I afraid that they would not be able to."

Following that, chains of laughter filled the room. Some of those eyes turned to him, poking his value full with holes of shame and disgust. He always knew that the peace treaty was just one of many formalities to fool the eyes of the people. The real thing inside, of course, was more complicated and went the opposite direction from what the people had expected.

Soothing down his anger, Flynn pulled a yellow paper from the document that Sodia handed him earlier, said, "We had already arranged the time and place of meeting. Although there is no guarantee that we will be able to meet with the head of Brave Vesperia Guild, as they do not know when the boss will return from his journey."

As expected, after his statement, the whole room exploded with laughter. The members seemed to have a well-developed sense of humor as they could able to turn something that was not funny into something definitely laughable. Which was sometimes seemed ungraceful or to be frankly stupid.

"What a dedicated leader he is. Having such a strange hobby of hiding when his own organization is undergoing such an incident. May be he already fled because he was afraid of facing the truth that the Guild had attacked the Emperor and damaged the treaty. Since we had have all the crucial evidences that with just in a few blink of an eye, we could swipe the whole guild into trashes."

Flynn furiously dropped the documents onto the table as he stood up from his seat too forcefully as it nearly fell backwards, "However sir, those evidences alone stand nothing. Anyone could just using the same type of weapon, or wearing the same uniform as that of Brave Vesperia Guild to pin the blame on them. It is too soon to come to the conclusion sir." And Flynn knew that it was a true fact, no matter who want or do not want to believe it.

"Commandant Flynn? Would you mind telling me what is the position that you are in?"

The question caught him off guard, but he quickly regained and answered, "I am the Commandant of the Imperial Knight."

"Then please do act like a Commandant should act. A Commandant of the Imperial Knight is not supposed to favor those delinquents from the other side of the continent. Our Emperor was injured, and that was a lost, and you still insist on depending those low lives?"

"But sir…"

"Do not interrupt me when I'm speaking, Commandant Scifo." The man who was constantly speaking ill of him and his friends raised his voice, demanding Flynn to keep silent. And to shame, Flynn did.

"You of all people should feel the most ashamed right now. Is it not your duty to make sure no harm shall ever come to the Emperor? You failed at your duty, Commandant. Should not you consider yourself lucky for are still be able to stand and talk to us after all this failure? Please know your place, and perform the right job, Commandant Flynn."

* * *

"Karol, do you have any idea about that damn whoever he is?"

The boy shook his head in anticipation, for the past few days, the two of them had harassed the Guild that was specialized in dealing with information by continuously burst inside their base and ran around, grabbing whomever they came across by the collar to ask, and yet they obtained nothing about the person who was behind the attack the other day.

And here when the Guild was going under such problem, the old man-boss of the guild was nowhere to be found. Yuri thought bitterly to himself, it might be not a good idea to let the man take the position after all. But, it was no use crying over spilt milk, Yuri knew much better than that.

Karol seemed to read his mind; a trait of little guilt held the fourteen years old boy's face sullen. He should not have given up the position, but he was yet a kid still, he could hardly lead the whole Guild as it was expanding so fast everyday. Besides, Karol felt the urge of growing up maturely, and there were many things that he had to learn in order to become a respective leader just like the Don.

Hand on his hips; Yuri looked over the boy's shoulder to only be met by the lovingly beautiful Krityan, who currently seemed to be occupied with her own thoughtful thinking. Yuri hoped that what was going on inside her mind did not have anything to do with what kind of fabric would she use for the next appearance of Lady Leila. Well, as if he had any other choice.

It was not a good start for them since the Emperor had stated that Brave Vesperia, even though doubtlessly, was involved in that infamous incident and it drove both Imperial Council and the Union nuts. Some of the Knights also confirmed about the presence of the Guild members through the weapons and machines that those delinquents left behind after retreating. Rita had already left earlier this morning to personally inspect those explosive machines that claimed to be her own creation (and that made her equally furious when destroying her beloved blastias)

And here they were, waiting for the genius mage to come back from her investigation, hopefully she will bring back some useful news regards the incident that lead them onto the next step of getting close to reveal the truth.

The door suddenly burst opened as the said mage came running in with her face as red as if it was burning, Rita put both her hands on her knees trying to support her breathing.

Besides her breathing, the whole composure of the mage just screamed dangerous, and both Yuri and Karol knew so well as not to touch the infamously insane mage even though by trying offer her a seat. Because, when Rita Mordio was angry, she was something to be fear.

They waited for a few good seconds before the mage finally straightened up and be ready to tell whatever she found out on her investigated trip.

"Okay, I got two news," she said while moving forward to where Judith was sitting when the Krityan offered her an empty chair beside her, "One is bad, and the other is worse. Which ones do you want to hear first?"

"Come on, you can't be serious. Are they both not bad news? What is the difference? The case itself is already bad enough, your humor isn't going to work here Rita." Karol shook his head, disappointingly.

"Dumb head, did you hear me clearly, one is bad, and one is worse. They are completely different, mind you."

As seeing the rising tension, Yuri quickly cool the heat down by telling the mage to inform them the bad news first. After all, the bad or worse would be very unpleasant to hear. And under this circumstances, it just merely discouraging, that was all. Therefore, hearing which ones first didn't matter since it didn't change one single thing nor doing any releasing stress treatment. Yuri thoughtfully looked at the mage while waiting for her to process all the information.

Rita put her hand into her chest pocket and pulled out a small crumple paper, "Well, the bad news is those weapons and the armors they found at the scene were all indeed bore the Brave Vesperia emblem. I also took a look at the spirit cores on those explosive weapons, and guess what, they all have our Guild mark inside them. Everything I saw there tells who the mastermind behind the attack is really." Rita eyebrows knitted together into a thoughtful grin, "The weapons could be fake, but those spirit cores are a real deal, I'm afraid that…"

"There must be a hole in somewhere in our control over arms. Or else, how can the foes be able to carry those cores right in front of our noses without us realizing." Judith crossed her legs, putting one finger over her chin.

"If it was only that, the problem is much easier to deal with. However…"

All three immediately turned their heads, staring at the mage. The look in her eyes told them that the worse news Rita was about to say would definitely going to be the one that they all anticipated the outcome. However, none of them said anything since they knew how serious and how much damaged it would cause to the whole Guild if it was to be found out.

"According to the frequency of spirit vibration I collected at the scene, it…" The mage bit down on her lower lip, casting her eyes downwards as she managed to mutter, "The artes that were used in the assault… they were all my exclusive creations for our Guild. There were even few that are still under development. And yet, the collected data showed that the capacity of those artes were at their ninety five percent of operation when they were used at the attack."

Tears were glittering around the corner of the mage's eyes as she spoke. Researching and creating things are all in her life that she could be able to perform properly without mistakes. Now the fact that someone stole her creations and did a better job at something that she was so proud of, that certainly was a big shock for the young mage.

Judith gently wrapped her arms around the mage's shoulder, pulled her into a soothing embrace while whisper words of comforting.

"Yuri," Karol suddenly said, "Does that mean we have spies inside our Guild? Not the kind of spies for the Imperial, but…"

Things seemed somehow had gotten pretty far out of hand now Yuri thought about it. With this ruckus, the Imperial would definitely not going to sit back and do nothing, especially when the heated tension was about to rise. And now, they had to encounter the problem of information leaking and possibly a spy who was mingle right inside the organization without their knowledge. And worse, they may even had someone who could easily exceed Rita.

Yuri crossed his legs on the table while pressing his back against the back of the chair. Now where to begin to unmask this spy?

"Yuri, there is also something I found, take a look at this." Rita slowly pulled out a small object from her pocket after having a hard time calming down.

With just one glance at it, Yuri's body suddenly jumped up in fear of realization. It just…couldn't be…

Resting inside the mage's hand was a small, broken hilt of some sort of blade. It seemed to be made out of silver with the image of half a face of a wolf carved along the edge.

"Do you have any idea about this symbol?" asked Judith, who quickly noticed the change in Yuri's expression.

"No, not at all."

That was certain a lie, and Judith noticed that. Only the reason why Yuri lied was what she was about to find out. The symbol of a silver wolf, and Yuri-a used to be lone wolf.

* * *

A/N: I intended to make this chapter longer, but then I decided it would be appropriate to end it here, because I do not want to give out so much. I promise the next chapter will be longer.

p/s: I've done watching Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike. And I must say that one of a few thing I like about this movie is that there is a lot of Flynn (and can't forget puppy Repede) However, I do not want to acknowledge what happens in the movie. Especially how out of character Flynn is. Well, may be it is just me, but I expected to see a lovingly scene where Yuri left the Knight where Flynn would yell at him for being such a coward for running away, and blah...blah... Not the the happily touching 'leave everything to me' scene that we saw. And I thought that the two of them grew up at the Lower Quarter as orphans (but Flynn does have a father and even a mother in the movie *sigh*) Anyway, it's just that I feel the movie is a bit off-track to be acted as the prequel of the game, because it's onlt make us confused. Even though I had a lot of fun seeing so much interaction of Flynn and Yuri, but I must said that I do not like the way the writer build the characters, it is kind of different from what we can make out and understand from the game.


End file.
